DONATION DENIED
Court upholds blood ruling
Yanhong Dewan was born into adversity, her first years spent in an overcrowded Chinese orphanage with little to eat and less human comfort.
It hasn’t always been easy in her adopted Canadian homeland, either, but when Dewan turned 17, she had an unusual wish: to donate blood and help others get well. It was not to be. The resident of the Windsor, Ont., area has no known bloodborne infections or other relevant health risks. She was rejected as a potential donor because her intellectual disability made it difficult to understand a lengthy screening questionnaire.
“I felt disappointed, not too happy about it,” Dewan said this week with characteristic directness. “Mad, too.”
Mad enough that she and her mother lodged a complaint accusing the blood agency of discriminating against her on the basis of intellectual disability.
The resulting legal tussle has already lasted five years, and could stretch on longer.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission essentially cleared the organization of any violations and the Federal Court of Canada has just upheld that ruling, but the young woman is now pondering an appeal.
At the heart of the case is how far the Canadian Blood Services (CBS) must go to accommodate a potential donor who seems physically healthy, yet is intellectually challenged.
Aided by a disability rights lawyer, Dewan argued she could have completed the screening with the help of a “clear-language interpreter,” similar to how deaf people or foreign-language speakers are vetted; CBS said that would undermine the system’s safety.
The dispute also cuts to the core of a key issue for all disabled people: the right to fully participate in society, and repudiate a past that saw many isolated in institutions or subjected to sterilization.
“It’s about people with disabilities having an equal chance to take part,” said Tess Sheldon of Toronto-based ARCH Disability Law Centre, Dewan’s lawyer.
“It’s about making sure that the blood-donor screening process is accessible.”
Marc Plante, a CBS spokesman, said the agency works hard with various groups to accommodate donors and it is “unfortunate” it could not do so in Dewan’s case.
“To ensure safety, all donors must understand the risks and responsibilities of blood donation, which can be somewhat complicated,” he said.
The solutions suggested by Dewan and her lawyer “could undermine Canadian Blood Services’ ability to assess that understanding.”
The agency was created following the tainted-blood tragedy, mandated to ensure the blood supply is as safe for patients as possible, the Federal Court ruling notes.
Dewan was living in an orphanage in Wuhan, China, when her Canadian mother, Yvonne Soulliere, adopted the four-year-old and brought her to live in LaSalle, Ont.
Her challenges have sometimes made it difficult to fit in, but she has always thought of others, repeatedly growing her hair long, then having it cut off to be used in wigs for cancer patients, working for Meals on Wheels and helping raise money for the Special Olympics.
Even as he dealt her another courtroom loss last month, Federal Court Justice Alan Diner acknowledged that Dewan was “a young woman of exceptional kindness and generosity.”
She had often talked about donating blood as soon as she turned 17 — CBS’s minimum age.
“I like to help other people,” Dewan explained. “I like to let people live and let them have a life and give other people a chance.”
But when she went to a clinic in LaSalle in early 2012, Dewan made it only six questions into a lengthy questionnaire before staff said she would not be able to give blood.
The screener’s notes quote Dewan’s mother as saying her daughter had the intellectual ability of a three- to five-year-old. “Donor cannot read and doesn’t have an understanding of time frames, transmissible disease — unable to understand questions even when restated in simpler fashion.”
An agency worker went further in a phone call with Soulliere, saying donation “will never happen” for Dewan.
CBS rejected the idea of having a third-party interpreter put the screening questions in more easily understandable words, saying the language had already been made as simple as possible. Changing the vocabulary further would “create undue risk to the safety of the blood supply,” a Human Rights Commission report said.
But Sheldon says both signlanguage and foreign-language interpreters make changes when words cannot be directly translated. A clear-language interpreter would be no more or less precise, she said.
“Clear language is not baby talk,” the lawyer said. “It’s not changing the message, it’s just using sentences that are short and clear, using only necessary words, using words that are direct and straightforward.”
But the rights commission rejected Dewan’s arguments, saying it was not necessary for the case to have a full hearing at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, and the Federal Court upheld that decision.
Dewan burst into tears just before a telephone conversation with the National Post, Soulliere said, and always points out signs calling for blood donors. The issue is upsetting for her, her mother said, but it is one she wants to contest.
“She doesn’t give up easily, about anything,” Soulliere said. “She sticks to it. When she gets her mind stuck on something, she goes for it.”
IT’S ABOUT PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES HAVING AN EQUAL CHANCE TO TAKE PART.