No need for Northern blood clinics, say health officials
Logistical challenges and a declining national demand means donation in the North remains unnecessary
James Goldie
Northern News Services
Friday, October 23, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Canada's national blood services agency has launched its latest awareness campaign but its message is unlikely to reach most Yellowknifers unless they are traveling south.
Canadian Blood Services has launched a new awareness campaign, offering red special bandages to donors to remind others to give blood. However, Yellowknifers won't see any here because it's still only possible to donate blood in the south. - photo courtesy of Canadian Blood Services |
That's because blood donation is still not possible in the North and according to health experts and service providers - that's perfectly OK.
Canadian Blood Services is now offering special red bandages to people after giving blood as a way of reminding others to make time to give as well, but because blood donation is not an option in this part of the country, the campaign will not be making its way to Yellowknife.
"There are timelines around how quickly blood needs to get to a production site," said Susan Matsumoto, the service's director of donor relations for Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the NWT. "There are distance and time factors and cost to have staff travel great distances, which all makes further-away clinics more expensive for us to run."
After being collected, there is a five-hour window of time in which blood needs to be transported to a facility for processing into red cells, plasma and platelets.
Platelets - which allow blood to clot - only have a five-day shelf life, meaning they need to be collected and processed on a regular basis.
"So it makes sense then to collect blood as close as you can to production sites," said Matsumoto.
Yellowknife's closest blood production site is in Edmonton. The northernmost clinic is offered in Bonnyville, Alta.
According to Mastumoto, in recent years the overall demand for blood in Canada has declined because of more advanced surgical techniques and blood conservation methods in hospitals.
This means it's unlikely blood clinics will ever come to places like Yellowknife.
"If anything, we're not in an expansion mode at all. We have less demand so we have to collect less blood," she said.
The NWT has seen a slight decrease in demand because most of those blood-saving methods are taking place are complex surgical centres not available in the north.
"The bulk of our blood usage in the North is related to emergency trauma," said Kimberly Riles, director of territorial health services with the GNWT. "So for the most part, all of our blood use is to support those kinds of services to sustain and treat people's conditions, either for management in the North or for transfer south."
Blood is shipped to the NWT predominantly from Edmonton, but could also come from other parts of the country where the service has blood production centres. Getting blood to the North can present unique challenges, although nothing that has ever resulted in a shortage of supply.
"When it comes to our shipments we receive, our most frequent concern is our weather," said Riles.
"While shipping, blood has to be protected from freezing, so if we are going to encounter a problem, typically it would be weather or temperature related."
For Yellowknifers frustrated by their inability to contribute to the cause, Matsumoto recommends planning head before taking a trip south to see if there will be a blood clinic somewhere along the way.
"For folks in Yellowknife, wherever your travels may take you, you may have the opportunity to give blood," she said.
