What happens when you donate blood
One bag of blood takes about 10 minutes to donate. You can expect to spend about an hour at the donation site for the entire donation process. Discover the different steps of a blood donation.
Before your donation
Plan your donation
We recommend booking an appointment to give blood. Of course, if you’re passing by a blood drive and can donate then and there, check with our team to see if there are any openings. If there are, we’ll be more than happy to take you. But of course, it’s best to book an appointment to guarantee your spot.
Preparing to donate: Some tips and tricks
- Make sure you feel well the day of your appointment.
- Review the eligibility criteria.*
- Wear loose-fitting clothing with sleeves that can be rolled up above the elbow.
- Bring your Héma-Québec donor card or your virtual donor card on the JeDonne Web app.
- If this is your first donation or if you’ve lost your donor card, bring a form of photo ID (e.g., driver’s licence, health insurance card or passport). Student IDs and business and public transit cards (e.g., OPUS) are not accepted.
- Have a list of all your medications and vaccinations handy to give our team.
- If you’ve travelled, make a list of the countries you’ve visited. You will be asked for this list during the pre-donation questionnaire.
- If you’re bringing a child with you to your appointment, plan to come with an adult who will not be donating. If both adults wish to donate, book appointments at least one hour apart. That way, there will always be someone to watch the child, and the first donor will be free before the second donor has begun their eligibility interview with a Héma-Québec staff member.
*Note: The Héma-Québec staff member conducting your pre-donation eligibility interview makes the final call on your eligibility.
Right before donating:
- Drink at least 500 ml of water or juice and eat something salty.
- Be sure to eat well and avoid fatty foods (bacon, fried food, etc.).
While you're at the donation site
Reception
Upon arrival, you must:
- Show photo ID.
- Review the eligibility criteria.
- Review the information on blood donation so you can give informed consent.
Registration
- We will go over your information with you to create or update your file.
- We will give you a wristband with a unique barcode that will be used to identify you at each step of the donation process, if needed.
- We will take your photo, if needed.
- We will check your hemoglobin levels (at donor centres, this occurs during the interview instead of at registration).
Health screening questionnaire
In this questionnaire, you will be asked about your health, your medications, any countries you have visited and any behaviour that puts you at risk for blood-borne infections. You can ask for headphones to listen to the audio version of the questionnaire if you prefer.
Eligibility interview
- We will go over some of your answers to the questionnaire, if needed.
- We will take your temperature (and check hemoglobin levels, if not already done at registration).
- At the end of the interview, we will confirm whether you are eligible to donate. If you are, you will be asked to sign a donation consent form.
Donation
We will disinfect the puncture site, insert a needle in the vein, take samples for lab tests and then draw your blood for the blood bag.
You’ll be set up in a comfy chair where you can read, chat with our staff and other donors or just sit back and relax.
It takes about 10 minutes to draw your blood. Our staff will keep a close eye on you the entire time.
It should feel just like a routine blood draw.
Most first-time donors say that it was much easier than they expected and feel very proud to have helped save lives.
About 450 ml of blood is drawn—that’s 1/12th of your total blood volume.
In addition to the donation, we collect samples to test for your blood type and any blood-borne diseases.
We use sterile, single-use equipment. That means there’s zero danger of contracting a disease from blood donation.
Rest and snack
When you’re done donating and the needle is removed, you must stay seated in the donor chair and apply pressure to the puncture site for 5 minutes before heading to the snack area.
You will be offered a selection of snacks and beverages. You’ll leave feeling proud that you helped save lives!
After your donation
After leaving our centre, you must:
- Rest, drink plenty of water or juice and avoid alcohol
- Keep your puncture site bandaged for 6 hours
- Avoid any strenuous activity for 6 to 8 hours (blood donation may make strenuous activities more difficult for several days) .
If you feel faint: Sit with your head between your knees or lie down and put your legs up for several minutes. If you are driving, park safely and ask for help or wait until you feel well enough to drive again.
You may need to wait longer before returning to work or exercise, depending on what you do (e.g., bus driver, heavy machinery operator, etc.).
Frequently asked questions
Men can give blood every 56 days and women can give every 84 days.
Women have a longer waiting period between donations in order to ensure their safety. The longer period prevents iron deficiencies that could result from blood donation, especially in premenopausal women. Blood loss from menstruation depletes the body’s iron stores. As a result, women are at a higher risk than men to experience a drop in their iron stores and, as a result, anemia.
If you’re bringing a child with you to your appointment, plan to come with an adult who will not be donating. If both adults wish to donate, book appointments at least one hour apart. That way, there will always be someone to watch the child, and the first donor will be free before the second donor has begun their eligibility interview with a Héma-Québec staff member.
Héma-Québec tests all donations for the following blood-borne diseases:
- Hepatitis A, B and C
- Human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV 1/2)
- Syphilis
- Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
- West Nile virus (WNV):
- Donations are systematically tested during WNV season. In the off-season, tests are conducted if the donor has travelled outside of Canada in the last 56 days.
- Chagas disease:
- Donations will be tested if the donor’s mother or maternal grandmother was born in Latin America (including Mexico) or if the donor spent 30 or more consecutive days in Latin America.
- Parvovirus
- Cytomegalovirus (CMV), as needed.
Héma-Québec may also perform any other tests needed in pursuit of its mission.
Under certain circumstances, these tests might not be performed (e.g., if a sample is damaged). If so, these donations are discarded without further testing.
If your lab results are abnormal:
- Your donation will be discarded.
- We will notify you of your results, which are kept confidential. We will also notify Canadian Blood Services so that they know how long you are ineligible to donate.
- When required by law, we will notify regional public health departments of positive test results.
Your donation will be discarded.
- We will notify you of your results, which are kept confidential. We will also notify Canadian Blood Services so that they know how long you are ineligible to donate.
- When required by law, we will notify regional public health departments of positive test results.
Héma-Québec collects personal information from donors through their interactions with its staff and via completed questionnaires. This information is required in order to make a donation. Héma-Québec uses the personal information of its donors, including their test results, to determine their eligibility for donating blood products, manage donations and communicate with donors.
Héma-Québec may disclose information to Canadian Blood Services and to hospitals or other blood transfusion centres, some of which are located outside Québec, for blood recipient safety purposes.
Donors can view their personal information and have it corrected by contacting the person in charge of access to documents and protection of personal information at responsable.acces@hema-quebec.qc.ca.
The blood products we collect are used for transfusions or for manufacturing medications. On rare occasions, donations may be used for educational purposes, specialized lab testing (transfusion medicine), product quality control and international aid.