Have a heart: donate blood or plasma

I have writer’s block today. Sometimes, I break it by playing word association games. Let’s see what happens.

Valentine’s Day. Next Tuesday. Not much help. I quit fantasizing about a liaison with Jane Fonda long ago.

Valentine’s Day leads to hearts. A surgeon installed three stents in mine, 12 years ago. I remember thinking, “I should let my wife know I’m having heart surgery.” She didn’t learn about it until later that night.

“Heart” suggests blood. Ah, there’s a subject I can write about!

I give blood at the Canadian Blood Services clinic here in Kelowna every two weeks. Correction – I give plasma every two weeks. If I gave whole blood – as I did for many years, until Canada’s tainted blood scandal forced rule changes that made anyone who had ever had malaria ineligible – my donations would have to be 56 days apart, to give my body time to replenish those donated blood cells.

But when I give plasma, they give me back my blood cells. All I need to replenish is fluids.

It’s a sophisticated process. A machine withdraws blood from my arm, separates my blood cells from the pale yellow plasma that carries those cells through my body, and then returns my blood cells to me.

The plasma goes to a lab to be separated into its valuable components.

Albumin helps to control fluid levels in my body. Fibrinogen helps blood clot after injuries.

The most important components of plasma, from my perspective, are three globulins; especially immunoglobulin, which contains antibodies to help people with weakened immune systems fend off infections.

It takes thousands of plasma donations to get enough immunoglobulin to treat one patient. And my wife received a transfusion of immunoglobulins every month for 12 years, for her leukemia.

I feel obligated to repay some of that investment in her.

But there’s a catch. Canadian Blood Services says it collects enough plasma to cover 100 per cent of direct plasma transfusions. But donations cover only 15 per cent of the plasma needed for “fractionating” – or refining – into the various medical products.

So Canadian Blood services has to buy the additional 85 per cent of plasma from foreign sources.

To increase that plasma supply,

Canadian Blood Services has now opened five dedicated plasma centres across Canada, including the one in Kelowna where I donate. Three more will open this year.

To be less dependent on outside sources, Canadian Blood Services also signed an agreement last September with Grifols, a Spanish-based commercial corporation.

Canadian plasma already goes to a

Grifols plant in the U.S. to be processed, before being shipped back to Canada.

The agreement commits Grifols to increase our plasma supply to 50 per cent of Canadian needs.

Grifols has a worldwide network of some 350 donation centres. It has opened its first Canadian centre in Winnipeg.

I gather that Grifols expects to collect more plasma by paying Canadians for their donations. A web search suggests payments might be $30 to $60 per donation.

Grifols will also, it seems, lower the restrictions on frequency of donations. Canadian Blood Services limits plasma donations to once a week. Grifols refers to twice a week.

Over a year, that could generate $3,000 to $6,000 extra income.

I have to admit, I don’t like it. That’s a personal bias – nothing in medical science suggests that paid donations are inferior to voluntary donations.

But the principle matters to me. I want a gift to be a gift, not a commercial transaction.

In a for-profit system, though, what alternative does a for-profit corporation have?

Until now, all Canadian donations have been voluntary. A local rep for Canadian Blood Services assured me they would continue to rely on voluntary donations.

I’m proud of Canadian donors! Some have given hundreds of times. Every one of those donations has saved someone’s life. No one – no one! – gets an unnecessary blood or plasma transfusion.

At the same time, if Canadian Blood Services has to pay for the blood and plasma that Canadians don’t give voluntarily, then it’s already a commercial transaction, isn’t it? So why shouldn’t the collecting agency pay its donors too?

Still, it feels like sneaking for-profit medicare in by the back door – as Ontario premier Doug Ford seems to be doing, farming cases from overcrowded hospitals out to for-profit medical clinics, with public funds footing the bill.

There’s an obvious solution. Roll up your sleeves, Canadians! Give blood. Give plasma. If enough people donated, there would be no need to depend on a for-profit system.

Have a heart!