Canada needs 400,000 litres of donated plasma annually to be self-suffient but collected only 170,000 from donors last year. Most of the rest was purchased from American fractionators which, it must be acknowledged, get plasma from paid donors. In considering payment for donors, Cranston, a former B.C. hospital administrator, wants to preclude the possibility that someday the sources of plasma might dry up, perhaps because local demand in, say, the U.S., accounted for all donations. That leaves us out on a limb with very few other avenues to be able to provide the product for Canadians. There certainly are enough potential donors here to achieve that goal, but getting them out to donor clinics is a challenge.
More public education is clearly the key.
Cash for the gift of life is not the Canadian way. Ken Pole is an Ottawa-based freelance writer.