Your Digest

Thank you for your adaptability and response to the Rogers outage  

When millions of Canadians were recently impacted by the national outage of the Rogers telecommunication network, our teams across the country stepped up to ensure continuity and to mitigate risk to our programs and services. Thank you all so much for going above and beyond for the benefit of both donors and patients. Make sure to watch for a story on Connect later this week that will highlight some of the exceptional ways our employees helped to keep Canada’s Lifeline going.  

Full circle experience with lifesaving cord blood for one special family 

Years after Manny Ford donated her first child’s umbilical cord blood, another donor saved the life of her second. Tristan Ford seemed perfectly healthy when he was born in the summer of 2020. But at five weeks old, he developed symptoms that led to the diagnosis of a rare immune disease that made his body attack his healthy body tissues. He was fortunate to receive a cord blood stem cell transplant in February 2021. He is now hitting most of the developmental milestones for his age, and his family is looking forward to his second birthday in a couple of weeks. Read more about Tristan and the importance of cord blood donation at blood.ca/stories.  

Quality policy in action: the end of the road for ‘the pocHI’ 

Last month, many employees across the country arrived at their workplace to a welcome change. Our Canadian Blood Services sites that collect platelets retired 26 Point of Care Hematology 100 (pocHi) analyzers in favour of newer processes and testing methods. Read more on Connect about this upgrade to a more modern way of testing platelet donations, an example of our quality policy in action.                             

Reminder: the Quality Mindset employee survey is open until July 15. Please take 10–15 minutes to participate in this anonymous survey which will help us understand how we are doing to instill understanding and drive for quality in all that we do, and how we can do better.  

Recording now available: Pride Day fireside chat 

We wrapped up Pride Month this June by holding a special employee “fireside chat” on Pride Day (June 28, 2022), featuring several of our 2SLGBTQIA+ colleagues from across the organization. Panelists and 2SLGBTQIA+ employee resource group members Catherine Lewis, Petrus Chan and Malcolm Henderson shared their personal stories and perspectives on topics ranging from visibility and representation to psychological safety, allyship and more. Watch the recording here.    

Question of the day

With several dedicated plasma donor centres now open in Canada, I want to try donating plasma. If I’m already a blood donor, do I have to choose one type of donation or can I donate both blood and plasma? 

You don’t necessarily need to choose because yes, some donors can give both blood and plasma. Blood donors who also wish to give plasma just need to wait 56 days between donating blood and plasma in either order. It’s also important to note that you may still be able to give plasma even if you’re not eligible to donate blood. For example, donors who have travelled to or lived in a malaria-risk area, or who have had malaria themselves, can donate plasma for the manufacture of plasma protein products (if they meet all other eligibility criteria). This is because the manufacturing process for these medications eliminates pathogens that may be present in plasma. There is a way for everyone to help save lives with Canada’s Lifeline. Find the donation opportunity that best fits you at blood.ca. 

About Your Digest

This digest highlights the latest policy and employee support measures, resources to help you manage our new reality and original content to remind us that what we do matters. This information can be found on blood.ca/employees from any device, no login required.

Read past editions of your digest.

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