/R E P E A T -- Montréal area - Héma-Québec is keeping its donation centres open for longer/

MONTRÉAL, May 5, 2025 /CNW/ - Héma-Québec has announced that it will be extending the hours of operation at its five Greater Montréal centres to help meet clients' needs and recruit new donors. The centres in Brossard, Laval, Montréal, Kirkland and Saint-Bruno will be open until 8:30 p.m. on all regular weekdays. Appointments are available at these times starting now.

"We are proud to be announcing this great news today," says Luc Lévesque, Vice-President, Blood Products and Mother's Milk at Héma-Québec. "The longer hours are specifically in response to our donors, who have been asking for this. It's one more way for us to make the donor experience easier and offer increased flexibility to people who want to donate blood, platelets or plasma."

This decision builds on the plasma self-sufficiency strategy that Héma-Québec has been implementing these past few years. The pandemic, and more recently, the geopolitical climate, have reaffirmed the need to reduce Québec's dependence on foreign biological products, such as immunoglobulins, plasma-derived medicines that primarily come from the United States.

"The longer hours in Greater Montréal are another way for us to help boost Québec's plasma self–sufficiency," adds Lévesque. "We've set some ambitious goals, and we can only achieve them with the generosity and support of the public. We feel certain that they will do their part!"

The road to self-sufficiency

Héma-Québec distributes biological products of human origin that pose a number of challenges to ensuring sufficient supply, such as transportation, different product lifespans, inventory and demand management, and donor recruitment. Further, with recent technological and medical breakthroughs, the need for biological products like immunoglobulin is on the rise and will continue to grow in the coming years. This makes Québec's self-sufficiency a real priority for Héma-Québec.

The province can be proud of where it stands at the moment. Currently, Québec is 100% self-sufficient in blood products intended for hospital transfusions and in breast milk intended for very premature babies. The current goal for plasma-derived medicines is to achieve 42% self-sufficiency in intravenous immunoglobulin by 2027. Providing longer hours at certain centres is one of the measures that Héma–Québec is taking to meet this target, along with opening new donation centres like the ones in Drummondville (2025) and Lévis (2026).

About Héma-Québec

Héma-Québec's mission is to efficiently meet the Québec population's needs for blood and other high-quality biological products of human origin. Héma-Québec has more than 1,900 employees, more than 200,000 donors of blood, plasma, stem cells, mothers' milk and human tissue, as well as thousands of volunteers at blood drive sites. Héma-Québec delivers nearly 800,000 human-derived biological products to Québec hospitals every year to meet patients' needs.

SOURCE Héma-Québec