Changes coming to blood donation in Northern Ontario

Big changes coming to blood donation system Canadian Blood Services is reducing mobile donation events in several northern Ontario communities.

Canadian Blood Services is tweaking how many times it heads out on the road in Northern Ontario for its mobile clinics.  Officials say it was in a bid to become more cost-effective while assessing the current operations.

The biggest change will come to the Greater Sudbury area. The mobile clinics in Lively, Hanmer and Azilda have been terminated and donors will have to travel into the Sudbury clinic at Barrydowne Road.

Mobile teams will also travel now on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  It means the Sault Ste Marie and Timmins events will go from 3  straight days to 2. They’ll still however continue to visit the area every 56 days.  New Liskeard collection events will go from 2 days to 1.  There will be no changes to Kirkland Lake, they’ve actually increased their capacity from 8 beds to 10.

“It’s possible that some people might have to readjust and while I would never ask, we would never ask people too far to travel to come into Sudbury,  what we’re hearing from a lot of donors is that they are actually including as part of their travel plans blood donation so that becomes part of their plans.  And I do want to extend to people in the community that every single donor centre across Canada would welcome anyone should they wish to do something similar.” said Associate Director of Donor Relations Kristine Haselsteiner.

Haselsteiner adds no staff have been impacted by the reduction in services.