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October 23, 2024

Héma-Québec welcomes Committee on Health and Social Services report

Montréal – Héma-Québec welcomes the recommendations of the Committee on Health and Social Services’ report submitted as part of their Order of initiative − The ways to facilitate organ and tissue donation, in particular the adoption of presumed consent to organ and tissue donation.


Héma-Québec was a keen participant in the Committee’s public hearings and discussions on this initiative, sharing its perspective and contributing its expertise and knowledge. Héma-Québec—which is responsible for collecting, processing, screening and distributing human tissue—made several recommendations that were used in the report, including recommendations to:

  • Set up a single, centralized registry so everyone can register their consent or lack thereof
  • With government support, develop and set up an ongoing awareness and education campaign to increase organ and tissue donation from the general public (with particular attention given to specific target groups)

Héma-Québec also welcomes the Committee’s first recommendation to:

  • Introduce enabling legislation for organ and tissue donation and delegate implementing authority to an organization

It should be noted that there is existing enabling legislation for the donation of human tissue and other human biological products—the Act respecting Héma-Québec and the biovigilance committee—and that Héma Québec has been delegated implementing authority.

“Héma Québec will continue to keep a close eye on this important initiative and work with the government and other authorities to improve the donation process for families and health care professionals in the interest of all Quebecers,” says Nathalie Fagnan, President and CEO of Héma Québec. “On behalf of my colleagues, I applaud the Committee members’ work.”

Héma-Québec: New sole human tissue distributor mandate

It’s worth recalling that Héma Québec manages the Human Tissue Bank and, as mentioned above, is responsible for collecting, processing, screening and distributing human tissue to meet the needs of Quebecers. The Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux has also made Héma Québec solely responsible for supplying human tissue to the entire health care network as of December 2, 2024. Before receiving this mandate, Héma-Québec supplied 60% of the human tissue used in Québec hospitals.

To take on its new role, Héma-Québec has implemented a centralized purchasing system. In other words, there will be a centralized register for product tracing and adverse reaction monitoring, as recommended by the biovigilance committee. Hospitals are currently in a transition period and aligning their procurement processes with this system. A communication and support plan is also being rolled out to inform all stakeholders of this important change.

As a final note, in 2023–2024, Héma-Québec distributed 5,400 human tissue products to Québec hospitals. These products fall into five main tissue categories: eye tissue (corneas and eyeballs), heart valves, arterial tissue, cutaneous tissue (skin) and musculoskeletal tissue (tendons and bones).

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About Héma-Québec

Héma-Québec’s mission is to efficiently meet the needs of the Québec population for quality blood and other biological products of human origin. Héma-Québec has more than 1,900 employees, more than 200,000 donors of blood, stem cells, mother’s milk and human tissues, and thousands of volunteers at blood collection sites. Every year, Héma-Québec delivers nearly 800,000 biological products of human origin to Québec’s hospitals in order to meet patients’ needs.

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Media line: 514-832-0871

medias@hema-quebec.qc.ca