Only a doctor can prescribe a transfusion. Each year, approximately 70,000 patients in the province's 117 hospitals receive 450,000 blood components. Technological progress has given us the tools with which to separate a number of blood components from whole blood.
Doctors can, therefore, choose the component that is best for their patients' condition.
This allows us to maximize the use of human blood, a vital resource. Any incompatibility could result in the rejection of the blood component and a worsening of the patient's condition. To learn more about safety precautions, click on Precautions. For a list of the principal side effects of a transfusion, click on Side effects.