A retiree from Quebec will make his 1000th blood donation in 59 years

A retiree with a big heart who helps homeless people with their finances will make his 1000^e blood donation to Héma-Québec.

“I am in good health and I feel great satisfaction knowing that other people will be able to survive longer thanks to my donation,” explains in an interview with Journal Jean-Guy Dionne, who will go to the Héma-Québec donation center in Sainte-Foy on December 9, to donate blood for the 1000^e times for 59 years. A weekly ritual that he imposes on Monday evening, after rush hour.

For several years, Mr. Dionne has chosen to donate blood plasma, a protein-rich liquid found in the blood. When he presents his arm for the infusion, a few milliliters of the golden liquid are extracted, which is used to make ultra-specialized drugs such as factor VIII, essential for hemophiliacs, or albumin, which is used in cases of serious hemorrhage.

Compared to a conventional blood donation, plasma donation requires remaining still for approximately 45 minutes. But since most of the liquid is reinjected, the donor recovers very quickly and can make a new donation after six days (compared to 51 days for a blood donation).

Nearly 60 years of donations

“I started giving at the age of 19, while I was studying economics at Laval University,” explains the former civil servant, who worked notably for the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture for over 20 years old.

He remembers that the son of one of his friends suffered from a rare disease that could only be treated with a drug made from blood plasma. This child did not survive, but the medication allowed him to exceed his life expectancy by several years.

Like him, thousands of people in Quebec depend on pharmaceutical products made from plasma, and no synthetic treatment or treatment made from animal blood can fulfill these functions.

Help for the homeless

Plasma donation is not Mr. Dionne’s only voluntary contribution. He helps the homeless people of Lauberivière, in the Saint-Roch district, to write their income tax returns in order to get them off the street. “These young people are entitled to reimbursements, but often they don’t know how to get them,” he says.

But his greatest pride was seeing his 18-year-old granddaughter, Léa, come with him to Héma-Québec to make her first blood donation. “My message to your readers is this: we can never have enough donors. Do it.”

Goal: twice as much plasma

Héma-Québec currently has 26,000 blood plasma donations and wants to double this number within three years.

“Several of them make multiple donations, which is admirable. But we need to double our volume of blood plasma,” says biomedical chemistry engineer Marie-Pierre Fafard, director of plasma self-sufficiency at Héma-Québec.

Quebec currently provides approximately 31% of its plasma needs and wishes to reach 42% within three years. A new center will open on January 13, 2025 in Drummondville as part of this initiative.

When Mr. Dionne began donating blood, plasma was extracted from the blood collected. But since 2013, Héma-Québec has used a technique called “aphoresis”, which consists of extracting blood plasma and immediately reinjecting the other components (white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets, etc.).

People suffering from autoimmune or immunodeficient diseases, neurological diseases and certain infections absolutely must be transfused with drugs made from plasma. In some cases, 160 plasma donations annually are necessary for the survival of a single person.