EDMONTON — Health Canada has confirmed to CBC News that two people died after giving blood plasma at pay-for-plasma collection centres run by Grifols in Winnipeg — one in October of 2025, and another in January of this year. This follows news that another Winnipeg man is suing over mechanical equipment failure that caused serious kidney injury after his plasma was withdrawn at a Grifols-owned Canadian Plasma Resources location.
“These incidents are deeply disturbing and alarming. We need robust investigations from Health Canada along with fulsome regulatory enforcement,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “And if needed, these facilities should be shut down. Anything less is unacceptable.”
Here in Alberta, Grifols’ Plasma Centre in Calgary recently received a non-compliant rating during its December 2025 inspection. A non-compliant rating means that the establishment has not shown that its activities comply with the Food and Drugs Act and Blood Regulations, and needs to take immediate corrective actions. Other Grifols sites in Canada have also experienced non-compliant ratings, such as in Regina this January.
“Given the deaths in Winnipeg, and other recently documented concerns in Regina and here in Calgary, it needs to be said clearly that these pay-for-plasma sites should not be allowed to operate anywhere in Alberta or Canada if the public cannot be 100% guaranteed that they are operating safely and meeting all regulatory and legal requirements,” said Gallaway.
The summary of the regular inspection at the Calgary location included concerning information, including that the establishment:
- did not accurately assess the donor's suitability,
- did not collect allogeneic blood according to its authorization from Health Canada,
- did not thoroughly investigate errors and accidents and determine corrective and preventive actions,
- did not carry out sufficient corrective and preventive actions when required,
- that the validation, calibration, cleaning, or maintenance of critical equipment were not always sufficient,
- along with a half dozen other serious regulatory criteria where the site was not meeting compliance.
“We have said from day one that something as crucial as protecting the integrity and safety of our blood and plasma donation systems should never be allowed to be compromised by profit,” said Gallaway. “Financially incentivizing people to give their plasma through widespread advertising campaigns by a corporate plasma collector with a profit motive has always been a recipe for disaster. The tragedy of these two potentially avoidable deaths should serve as testament to this.”
Alberta advocates, including FOM, were successful in winning a provincial ban on paid-plasma, before that legislation was repealed by the newly-formed UCP government in 2020. In 2022 Canada’s public blood authority, Canadian Blood Services, signed an unprecedented exclusive 15-year agreement that handed over the collection of plasma to Grifols, a private for-profit company. This contract, and its direct undermining of our voluntary blood and plasma donation system, was something that Friends of Medicare and many other health care experts and advocates, strongly opposed and denounced as a dangerous decision at the time.
“The privatization of plasma collection in Canada set off a dangerous precedent that erodes our voluntary donation system. What we are seeing now appears to be the direct consequence of that decision: very serious safety concerns for Canadians seeking to give their plasma. Our governments need to step in to ensure safety, and ultimately bring these collection services back under our public Canadian Blood Services umbrella,” concluded Gallaway.
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