Partners for life
Vancouver Coastal Health has been a Partner for Life with Canadian Blood Services since 2011 and has made 415 donations to date. There are currently 114 VCH employee blood donors registered as part of the VCH Partners for Life group.
In 2016, VCH employees have pledged 110 blood donations. This will help Canadian Blood Services reach their national goal of 200,000 blood donations by July 1, 2016 to meet the needs of patients in hospitals across Canada.
How to be a partner for life
- Staff in the Vancouver area can book appointments at the clinic located at 4750 Oak Street (next to Women’s and Children’s Hospital). The clinic is open from 11 am to 7 pm Monday through Friday and 8:30 am to 4:30 pm on Saturdays. If you can’t book an appointment, please drop-in.
- Book an appointment on blood.ca or using the GiveBlood app.
- Add your name to the VCH annual pledge http://tinyurl.com/VCHGives|
- Clinics are located in communities throughout the lower mainland. Check blood.ca.
Related
Hopes run high to find donor for Josh Weekes
Trudi Goels
Hi Jillian –
There is no licensed test available worldwide to test for vCJD (the human version of “mad cow disease”), and the incubation period—that is, the amount of time before symptoms show up—is currently unknown.
Because of the theoretical risk of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vcJD), Health Canada has concluded that deferring donors who have spent a cumulative total of three months or more in the United Kingdom (U.K.) between January 1980 and December 31, 1996, or if they have spent a cumulative total of three months or more in France between January 1980 and December 31, 1996, or if they have spent a cumulative total of five years or more in Western Europe outside of the U.K. or from January 1, 1980 through December 31, 2007, balances the safety of Canada’s blood supply with the need for donors.
We are carefully monitoring the development of new technologies to either remove vCJD from blood, or test for the presence of the disease in blood. When the vCJD deferral policy was introduced in 1999, Canadian Blood Services said it would review it annually in consultation with Health Canada and Héma-Québec, and potentially revise it as appropriate.
In Vancouver, we have a research site at UBC called NetCAD. You can register to donate directly there if that interests you. All donations collected at NetCAD are used for a variety of research projects. More information can be found here:
https://www.blood.ca/en/blood/blood-research
Jillian
Just wondering when the Canadian Blood Services will find a test for BSE. There are many of us from the UK that are restricted from donating because of it’s inability to test donors at their clinics. I used to give blood in Quebec but am banned in BC and my donated blood can only be used for research. This is a barrier for many potential donors.