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Before blood donated in Saskatchewan can help people, it will now have to make a detour to Alberta first.
Canadian Blood Services (CBS) shut down their production department in Regina on May 25. The facility served to separate the blood into its different components such as red blood cells, platelets, plasma and other products supplied by blood services.
Those services will now be provided at a Calgary location before the supply comes back to Saskatchewan, where it will be stored.
“It helps us get the right product to the right place at the right time, basically for more efficiencies and really improve the health care system delivery from our end,” said David Krol, director of supply chain for the prairie region with CBS.
He said the Calgary location provides a larger pool of inventory to draw from.
Krol said this change has been in the works for about a year and is part of a national facilities redevelopment program.
Two new blood collection sites will also open in Saskatoon and Regina as part of the redevelopment.
About 20 employees were affected by the closure with 14 losing their jobs.
“As soon as this decision was made, we were very clear and transparent with staff to let them know, first of all, what was going to happen and once we understood the timing more specifically, we advised the staff that were impacted,” Krol said.
Since there will still be a distribution site in Regina, Saskatchewan hospitals will not see a change in how they would get their supply.
