Advocacy groups call for inquest after plasma donor deaths

WINNIPEG — The provincial government is being urged to call an inquest into the deaths of two people who had donated plasma at for-profit collection centres in Winnipeg.

Health Canada has promised to investigate the deaths, which occurred in October and January at two Grifols Plasma Donation Centres in Winnipeg.

However, the Manitoba Health Coalition said Health Canada licenses Grifols and it has a conflict of interest.

“We want as independent and (thorough) an investigation as possible for the loved ones of these Manitobans who died, to get real answers and so that harm like this doesn’t happen in the future,” coalition executive director Noah Schulz said at a news conference Friday.

Schulz was joined by representatives of the Ontario Health Coalition, which supports the call for an inquest. It said Canadian Blood Services’ contract with Grifols should be made public, considering a number of sites across Canada have been deemed “non-compliant” with federal regulations after inspection.

“Health Canada gave the approval for Grifols to harvest plasma from a single donor up to 104 times a year. That’s extremely frequent,” said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario coalition. “The meta analysis indicates that there can be serious safety concerns with that kind of frequency of plasma harvesting, and those concerns that we have raised and others have raised, need to be addressed.”

Plasma is part of the blood that can be used to treat medical emergencies such as burns, and it assists with cancer treatments, hepatitis B and bone marrow transplants. People who donate their plasma are paid.

Manitoba’s chief medical examiner has the authority to call an inquest into a death if there is a benefit to the public.

Stephanie Holfeld, the executive director of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said the office “does not maintain information related to operators, licensing, or regulatory compliance” on plasma donation because it falls under Health Canada jurisdiction.

Health Canada told CBC Friday that four people have died in Canada after giving plasma over the last decade. Three of those deaths were in Manitoba. The other was in Quebec.

The Canadian Health Coalition wants federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel to ban for-profit paid plasma centres across the country, following the two deaths in Winnipeg.

“Canadian Blood Services needs to immediately cancel Grifols as their agent and take over plasma collection,” said Jason MacLean, the Canadian coalition’s chair.

At Grifols sites, donors are able to give plasma twice a week, and make anywhere from $60 to $100 a session, not including bonuses and other offers.

Winnipeg’s Taylor Avenue plasma centre was last inspected in 2023, and the Innovation Drive centre was last inspected in 2025. Both were deemed compliant with federal regulations, but inspectors found a number of issues.

Most recently, an inspector identified problems at the Innovation Drive location: records of staff qualifications, the cleaning or maintenance of equipment, and their records management system were “not always sufficient.”

A report noted the centre did not “thoroughly investigate errors and accidents and determine corrective and preventive actions.”

Health Canada “requested corrective actions” but no followup report is available.

On the federal government’s website, four Grifols locations have been deemed “non-compliant” since 2022. No Winnipeg locations are among the four sites.

Health Canada has said no link has been made between the deaths and plasma donation; Grifols, which produces plasma-based medication, has maintained it has “no reason to believe that there is a correlation between the donors’ passing and plasma donation.”

Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said this week the province would consider banning paid plasma donations, which British Columbia and Quebec have already done.

Ontario also has a ban, but it exempts Grifols when it collects plasma for Canadian Blood Services.

On Friday, Asagwara said the province will wait for the results of Health Canada’s investigation.

» Winnipeg Free Press