Why Give Blood?

• Blood: a precious fluid
• The blood supply: a daily challenge
• Give blood. Give life.

Blood: a precious fluid

Every day, hospital centres require blood components—by-products of blood donations—to treat their patients. It is often a matter of life or death.

Every year, Québec’s hospital centres use approximately 400,000 units of blood products to meet the needs of over 75,000 patients.

The blood supply: a daily challenge

The requirements for blood are constant, whereas only 3% of Quebecers who are eligible to give blood make donations to the collective blood supply managed by Héma-Québec for Québec hospitals and their patients. The blood supply challenge that we face as the supplier of blood products for Québec is a daily one.

We must collect a minimum of 1,000 donations per day to meet Quebecers’ needs. To achieve this objective, we must welcome at least 1,250 people to its blood donor clinics. In fact, the donor qualification criteria that have been put into place to ensure the safety of the blood supply exclude certain people who come to these clinics from giving blood.

On an annual basis, we welcome an average of 300,000 donors at approximately 3,000 blood drives that are organized by the community at large to meet its needs.

Blood components that are the products of blood donations are perishable. For example, platelets can only be stored for five days. The limited shelf life of blood components combined with the necessity of ensuring a blood supply of at least six days make the blood supply challenge even more significant.

Give blood. Give life.

Knowing that every 80 seconds someone needs blood, we all—individually and collectively—have a role to play in ensuring an adequate blood supply for the population of Québec.

The maintenance of the collective blood supply depends entirely on the generosity of people who care about sharing the priceless gift of good health.

There is no danger of contracting a disease by donating blood. All of the materials used for collecting blood are new, sterile and destroyed after use. Thanks to a rigorous selection of volunteer donors, modern screening tests that are carried out on all blood units and the experience of our team, the blood supply is extremely safe.

A simple gift of blood can help save up to four lives.