Canadian Blood Services says it is producing too much blood plasma and is going to close its Thunder Bay Centre collection center, shedding 25 unionized jobs.
Represented by OPSEU, the workers received notice this afternoon, learning that CBS is closing its Thunder Bay facility April 12.
“After major job losses in both the Federal and Provincial budgets, CBS is adding to the attack on workers felt across Ontario this week,” says Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President of the 130,000-member Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
CBS states that new products and declining hospital demand for plasma products led to the decision.
Blood plasma is primarily used by hospitals for transfusions.
OPSEU Diablogue 
Too much Plasma??? Please CBS, show those stats. Thunder Bay has a Regional Hospital, along with a Regional Cancer Centre, and there is too much plasma? Especially in CBS’s brochure ” Where does my Plasma go” in which the CBS says ” The need is urgent, a need only met by you…” Right!!!! Another attack on Public Sector Workers….Shame CBS…Lets hope you did not create a unnecessary blood/plasma crisis in Thunder Bay, the Region, and the Province.
Click to access CL2012-07.pdf
Most current hospital satisfaction survey..(Feb 27, 2012) .in which the hospital’s who participated stated that they would like to see improvements in product availability….Great job CBS in distancing yourself from your own satisfaction survey…I see you are listening..!!!!! Shame!!!
The North gets hit again. Does this mean that a patient requiring treatment will need to travel to a centralized location for their treatment? At who’s expense and I don’t just mean out of pocket expenses. For some patients to travel great distances while in a state of needed treatment, puts the patient at risk.
I have brought the issue of ‘safety’ in this context to the administration of a hospital just recently. The response was typical-‘We believe in the safely of every patient….etc…’ we already know that standard respond. We take on our own personal liability, as a patient, when travelling in states of ill health.
I have worked for CBS for 24 years first when it was Canadian Red Cross. We were never self sufficient with our plasma. We send most of it to the States for the making of factor 8, which then gets topped up and sent back to Canada. So how can CBS say it produces too much when we can`t even supply enough for our own Hemophilics? It was stated years ago that we needed these large plasma centres so we could become self sufficient and build our own manufacturing plant. Just the same about adding more full time jobs, all I see is staff being let go or made to go part time. All the perm sites in Canada have had their hours chopped.This isn`t about not enough plasma it all comes down to money. Maybe our head office needs to look closer to home to save some money and stop attacking the front line staff.