Blood Service Teams Up With Legion And Canadian Forces

PHOTO: SERGEANT JERRY KEAN, PUBLIC AFFAIRS IMAGING TECH, PRT

Sergeant Doug Robert unloads Canadian Blood Services products at Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Perhaps no other group of people is more aware of the importance of giving blood than those who have served, particularly those who have been wounded. As such, the Canadian Blood Services is formally teaming up with The Royal Canadian Legion and the Canadian Forces with the aim of getting more Canadians, young and old, to donate.

Our national blood system got its start during World War II, when citizens gave blood in unprecedented numbers. Still only 45,000 out of Canada’s population of 32 million people give regularly.

The CBS, which is responsible for Canada’s blood system everywhere apart from Quebec, would like to boost those numbers. Its Partners for Life initiative involves working with the public sector, corporations and community groups to maximize their efforts and reach large segments of the population. Participating groups are asked to set a donation pledge for the year, with the understanding that the CBS will provide tools such as promotional materials and a shuttle bus service to facilitate donation.

At the Legion’s Dominion Executive Council meeting in February, delegates agreed to join with the Canadian Forces in partnership with the CBS. Many individual Legion branches across the country have long supported the CBS’ work by hosting donor clinics, explained Dominion Command Communications Director Bob Butt. With the more formalized arrangement, he added, “we are part of a partnership and it is for the benefit of those who are serving today. That’s why the Legion got involved.”

Butt emphasizes that joining the program will cost the Legion nothing. Its contribution will include allowing the blood services to use the Legion badge and name in advertising material, and to communicate with provincial commands and branches as necessary. To get things rolling, the CBS had an information booth at dominion convention in Calgary.

Paula Arscott, acting partnerships and events manager with the CBS, said the Legion has always been a “big supporter” of the country’s blood services. “This is basically solidifying the partnership and putting more formal lines of communications out to members.”

Like the Legion, the Canadian Forces have also been actively assisting the CBS. Over the last five years, CF members have been donating thousands of pints of blood through Operation Roll Up Your Sleeves, typically held between November and January.

CF Surgeon-General Brigadier-General Hilary Jaeger noted, “The Canadian Forces is committed to helping Canadian Blood Services meet Canada’s need for blood. We are acutely aware of the role played by blood donors in helping to save lives in both times of war and peace and our profound thanks go to these generous individuals. We encourage everyone who can donate blood to do so.”

The demand for blood has been increasing in the last few years by four to five per cent a year, said Dr. Graham Sher, the chief executive officer of the CBS. The aging of the population, improvements in trauma care and the rise of surgeries such as hip and knee replacements all contribute to this. “We can meet the growing demand but it’s a challenge. We are working with the broadest population to help Canadians understand the social commitment they must make as blood donors.”

Fortunately, the CBS has been able to open up eligibility over the last couple of years by removing two key restrictions.

In 2004, the services removed the upper age limit for donation. The lower limit is still 17. Sher, a hematologist by training, explained that the restriction had been in place to protect donors. However, new research showed no medical reason why an otherwise healthy person at 72 would be any less safe to donate than at 71. “If you’ve got a longtime donor who doesn’t have risk factors,” he said, “you don’t want to lose them.”

Last year, the CBS was able to welcome back another segment of donors–those who had travelled to the U.K. and Western Europe after 1996. Since 1999, safeguards had been in place to protect the blood system from the transmission of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease, the human form of Mad Cow Disease. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) had been at its peak between 1980 and 1996. As such, the blood services had indefinitely deferred all donors who had spent a cumulative total of more than three months in the U.K. or Western Europe since 1980. Improved food production practices overseas, along with updated science on the risks, have enabled the CBS alter its policy.

With the help of the Legion and the CF, the CBS is hoping to welcome still more Canadians into its donor clinics.

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