Héma-québec keeps the blood lines going
In March, Premier François Legault took time from one of his daily press conferences to urge Quebecers to donate blood. In the early days of social distancing when the message focused on staying home, it was an unexpected request that stuck in people’s minds.
But to Héma-québec, the non-profit organization that supplies the province’s hospitals with blood and blood-related products, the call from the premier had a clear purpose: it was a necessary way to prevent a blood shortage in Quebec.
“We can’t stop even for a couple of days; we have to keep the supply up and running,” said Dr. Marc Germain, Héma-québec’s vicepresident of medical affairs and innovation, adding it was, to his knowledge, the first time a wide public appeal for blood had been made in the province since they usually have enough from regular donations.
While the demand for blood has decreased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic because a number of elective surgeries have been postponed or cancelled, that momentary blip gave Héma-québec enough time to adjust to the new reality. You can’t freeze blood, and it expires after a few weeks, so it’s imperative to maintain a steady supply.
The first few days of the pandemic were “hectic” at Héma-québec, said Germain, and they still have to adapt their operations on a day-to-day basis as the situation evolves.
Early on, it became apparent the triedand-true system of setting up mobile blood drives and having people come without appointments wouldn’t work anymore.
“We’re used to planning these blood drives weeks in advance,” Germain said. “You have to find a locale where we can set up the donation clinic, and some of these sites we planned to use were closed, like shopping malls.
“We had to work fast to find alternate sites, but it was a lot of work. Personnel worked double shifts to organize new drives and cancel the old ones. One thing we also had to do was stop travelling too far from our main facilities for blood drives. Some of our staff would travel long distances to remote sites. We decided to cancel clinics in more remote locations in the province like Côte-nord and Bas-st-laurent until we find ways to carry our staff in a safe manner. It’s a daily exercise of adjusting.”
Some parts of Héma-québec, such as in their research and development facility in Quebec City, had their work put on hold, with some workers were reassigned to help on the front lines with pre-screening at donation sites. Other personnel has been working from home, if possible.
Because Héma-québec deals with blood, workers already have their own set of safety precautions. Transmission by contact with blood is different than a virus, but there are some similarities in safety precautions. For instance, Héma-québec always took the temperatures of donors, only instead of doing it during the questionnaire process, it’s now done before the donor even enters the donation site.
Cleanliness has always been paramount at blood drives, and the vigilance of these essential workers has only increased, as the seats are decontaminated and sanitized after each use, handwashing is done throughout, and both workers and donors are given masks to wear.
When Legault made his initial request for donations, Héma-québec was flooded with messages from generous citizens, only they flocked to their Blood Donor Centres, making it difficult to respect social distancing measures. Those centres always allowed for appointments, but mobile blood drives didn’t — anyone could show up at any time. Now they’re appointment-only in order to keep people safe and prevent crowding.
“The process of donating blood is about the same,” Germain said. “If anything, it’s a little easier because with appointments, there’s very little wait time involved. The process can be done in a matter of less than an hour or so.”
A potential key to helping treat COVID-19 may lie in the blood of those who had the virus. A clinical trial involving around 50 centres across Canada will seek to determine if the antibodies in people who contracted the coronavirus and recovered can be used in treatment.
As a result, Héma-québec is now making another important call: for convalescent plasma donations from people who had the virus. To ensure safety, the donor needs to be recovered for at least 14 days in order to donate.
“The idea is these patients mounted what we call a humoral response — that is the development of antibodies directed against the COVID virus,” the doctor said. “By transfusing these antibodies to sick patients, the hope is they’ll help these patients fight the infection in a more rapid manner than with their own line of defence.”
While Germain said they don’t know if it will work, Quebec may play an important role in this trial since Montreal is the epicentre of the virus in Canada and, therefore, more potential donors exist here.
“A donor can even donate on regular basis once every six days,” he said.