Héma-Québec releases 2023–2024 annual report

Montréal – Héma-Québec’s 2023–2024 Annual Report was submitted to the National Assembly of Québec yesterday, and is now publicly available on its own website. The annual report covers the activities and accomplishments of the past fiscal year, which ran from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024, and marked an important milestone in the organization’s history: Héma-Québec celebrated its 25th anniversary on September 28, 2023. 

Once again this year, Héma-Québec saw continued success in its mission to efficiently meet the needs of the Québec population for quality blood and other biological products of human origin. Here are a few of our accomplishments:

• 148,376 people donated blood.
• 300,478 blood products were distributed.
• 26,963 people donated plasma.
• 453,376 stable products were distributed.

Héma-Québec has also continued to carry out and expand its impactful work in other areas of public health, including stem cell donation for transplants, human tissue donation and mother’s milk donation, as well as specialized laboratory services.

Another momentous accomplishment: Héma-Québec received authorization from Health Canada to modify the criteria regarding exposure to Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, also known as mad cow disease, so that people who have travelled or lived in certain countries in Western Europe are now eligible to donate blood products.

Héma-Québec has also been hard at work to improve the province’s plasma self-sufficiency, to outstanding results. The annual report celebrates a 22% increase in plasma donations compared to the previous fiscal year. Another highlight of the year is Héma-Québec’s new mandate, which will come into effect in late 2024, as the sole distributor of human tissue. All year long, the organization has been diligently preparing for the exciting new responsibility of supplying Québec’s hospitals with all of their human tissue needs.

This achievement, in addition to the sustained growth of Héma-Québec’s activities and responsibilities, will put wind to the organization’s sails to support ambitious programs in the near future, including the launch of new plasma donation centres.