Blood-supply crisis strikes Canada: Sudden 40% drop is unprecedented

Emergency blood reserves have shrunk 40% in the last two months, leaving stocks at the lowest point they’ve been since Canadian Blood Services (CBS) came into existence 10 years ago.

In response, CBS has already begun to ration shipments of blood to hospitals and may have to consider changing its policies on eligible blood donors.

The organization is issuing an urgent call for more donors.

Normally, CBS reserves are large enough to cover four to six days of demand for blood from hospitals. As of yesterday, only two days of blood was available for the most common blood types.

“It is a dramatic shift downwards,” said Canadian Blood Services communications director Ron Vezina.

Hospitals are still receiving enough blood to meet emergency needs, but some elective surgeries and routine procedures may be delayed by the reduced reserves, a CBS statement warned today.

The cause of the sudden shortfall is unknown at this point. “We are still trying to get to bottom of this,” said Mr Vezina.

“The number of donations coming in have not kept up with hospitals’ demand,” he said. “Because of the imbalance in deposits and withdrawals, we’ve had to dip into our reserve.”

However, the organization responsible for blood services in Quebec said there is no shortage of blood supplies there. In fact, Héma-Québec -- which is independent of Canadian Blood Services -- currently has a reserve of 7.5 days, slightly above its average target of seven days.

On Monday, CBS asked Héma-Québec to help shore up their blood reserves. Héma-Québec communications director Laurent Paul Ménard said the organization obliged. “We were able to help them out and we were glad to do so,” said Mr Ménard. He said he didn’t know why CBS was suffering from an unprecedented crisis while Héma-Québec’s stocks were at above-average levels.

Over the last three years, the demand for blood from CBS has risen by 3%, while the number of donations has fallen slightly, by 0.7%.

It is estimated that although one in two Canadians are eligible to donate blood, only one in 60 has done so this year. “We are still analyzing why we are not getting enough bookings,” Mr Vezina said. September and October have been known in the past as strong months for donations; Mr Vezina called this year an “abnormality.”

Mr Vezina said CBS could not rule out the possibility of considering changing its policies about eligible blood donors if the level of the emergency blood reserve remains as low as it is now for an extended period of time.

“If we are in a situation where there are not enough donors, do we have to look at other policies that may have a potential impact on safety, or vice versa?” he asked. “If we were into a full-blown crisis, we would have to look at all our policies,” he said. Those policies that could be reevaluated include the ban on donations by men who have had sex with men (MSM) since 1977, and restrictions based on travel. A CBS review of the MSM policy is already underway.

To try to encourage more donors to come forward, CBS has bought extra advertising time on radio stations over the last two months. The organization is sending 30,000 voicemail messages to Canadians who have donated before, and also plans to reevaluate its donation centres’ operating hours and capacities.

Mr Vezina urged Canadians to visit a Canadian Blood Services donor clinic or one of the organization’s 40 permanent locations across Canada.

Image: Canadian Blood Services

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