Daily COVID-19 digest

Join us tomorrow for a live Q&A with Graham: Please join us Tuesday, May 26 at 1 p.m. ET for a live Q&A with our CEO. This week, Graham will be joined by special guest, Chief Scientist Dr. Dana Devine to answer all your questions on the convalescent plasma clinical trial. We want to continue to make these sessions as engaging as possible. With over 1,000 of you attending our last live event, we hope continue discussions on topics that are top of mind for you. Please see the outlook invite sent to you last week for the meeting link, details on how to participate on any device and to access the attendee help guide.

Virtual fitness classes for employees: While some fitness facilities are beginning to open in select locations, many of us across the country are still waiting to know when our local gym or boutique fitness studio will open its doors. To support employee’s physical and mental wellbeing, we are planning to offer virtual fitness classes in partnership with Goodlife Fitness. Is your preference yoga, zumba or strength training (just to name a few)? Please send us an email at thrive@blood.ca and let us know what type of class would be of interest. In the meantime, check out this list of online fitness options to keep your mind and body active!

The people of plasma: As a manufacturer of biologics, quality is the guiding principle in everything we do at Canadian Blood Services. So as the organization prepares to open three new plasma donor centres across the country, Colette Hruschka is lending her support to keep quality as a central focus — even during the pandemic. Learn more about how Colette is casting a thoughtful eye to all processes as the organization works to collect more source plasma on Connect.

Question of the day: I don’t like the hand sanitizer supplied by Canadian Blood Services. Can I bring my own?

The safety of our employees and volunteers is our top priority. Canadian Blood Services provides hand sanitizers for our teams to use while at work. Our hand sanitizers were chosen based on a variety of factors including; safety, effectiveness and concentration of active ingredients, regulatory factors, availability, delivery method and ease of use.

However, if you would like to use your own personal no-scent hand sanitizer, you may do so. We ask that you do not provide personally owned products to other employees to adhere to physical distancing measures and limit the risk of spread.

We want to remind employees that the first line of defense is proper hand hygiene.  Washing your hands is preferred to hand sanitizing whenever possible and practical. To limit the risk of damage to personal belongings, we also ask that employees remove all jewelry before entering our facilities.

We encourage you to share your thoughts about our hand sanitizer and other PPE inventory with your supervisor, so they can be communicated with the procurement team. You can find safety data information on our hand sanitizers and other PPE on the WHMIS database.

About the daily digest

This daily digest will highlight the latest policy and employee support measures, resources to help you manage our new reality and original content like articles and videos to remind us that what we do matters. Things are moving quickly, so you can expect to hear from us daily. No access to email? No problem — all this information and more can be found on blood.ca/employees from any device, no login required.

Click here to read past editions of the daily digest.

Have questions? Check out blood.ca/employees or email us at communications@blood.ca.