Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Paid plasma donations save money

Re: “Don’t pay plasma donors,” editorial, May 4. The British Columbia government will join two other left-wing governments in Canada, Alberta and Ontario, in banning compensation for plasma donations.

Re: “Don’t pay plasma donors,” editorial, May 4.

The British Columbia government will join two other left-wing governments in Canada, Alberta and Ontario, in banning compensation for plasma donations. The bans are not in response to public opinion; in fact, a poll by Research Now in 2017 suggested that 72 per cent of Canadians thought that paying blood donors was acceptable.

Health Minister Adrian Dix’s concern that “the volunteer system will suffer” is not based on hard evidence. Maybe a bit of smoke and mirrors. In the U.S., paid and volunteer clinics coexist successfully. Their unpaid donation rate is higher than Canada’s, in spite of 600 private, paid clinics.

Canadian Blood Services has known for some time that a private, for-profit, Canadian company, Canadian Plasma Resources, will supply plasma at near one-third the projected price of the union-driven CBS plasma. The CPR offer has been rejected by Canadian Blood Services.

I smell an $855-million or $405-per-litre sweetheart deal here for a government union-driven organization.

The cost of CPR blood is $166 per litre, which beats any other supplier price, including the U.S.

As a taxpayer, the bottom line for me is “value for money.” I suspect we have a market failure driven by politics and union fear of competition. And it is going to cost us taxpayers the unnecessary expense of millions of dollars a year.

Learn more about this issue at donationethics.com.

Rick Pepper

Saanich