Controversial plasma collection centre opens
In a chilly room, the CEO of a private company that collects plasma from blood, points to a white freezer where the plasma will be stored in the new Saskatoon facility—the company’s first collection centre in Canada.
Canadian Plasma Resources (CPR) extracts only plasma, the liquid in which red and white blood cells are suspended, during the donation process and uses it to manufacture products that help people with conditions including immune deficiencies and a variety of rare disorders.
Donors get compensated with $25 gift cards. It’s a practice some say is unfair, arguing it exploits low-income people and could detract from voluntary blood donations.
But the provincial government assured CPR it would not create legislation banning paid donations, something the Ontario government has done. Health Minister Dustin Duncan pointed out that although Ontario prevented the collection of plasma on a paid basis, it did not pass legislation to ban the importation of plasma products that came from a paid donor.
About 80 per cent of the plasma Canadians receive is from American donors who are compensated.