Blood donation policy outdated, discriminatory: Young Liberals

The youth wing of the Liberal Party at Memorial Universityis calling for an end to a ban which prohibits men who have had sex with other men over the past five years from giving blood.

Young Liberals say the Canadian Blood Services, which manages the country's blood supply, is being discriminatory, and is circulating an online petition to try and have the policy removed.

Ryan Steeves, president of Young Liberals at MUN, says unsafe sex is risky, but being gay and sexually active isn't.

"When you're a healthy person who adopts healthy practices, you shouldn't be penalized for the fact that you have a sexual preference or sexual orientation," Steeves told CBC News.

"It's one of those things that's definitely based on stereotype and caricature. It's something that may have made sense in the 70s when it was brought in, but it doesn't make any sense now."

He said asking a man if he's had sex with another man over the past five years "doesn't actually target the root cause of the issues they are looking for."

Revisions called 'unrealistic'

In May 2013, the Canadian Blood Services lifted a lifetime ban on blood donations from gay men. Under the new policy, males who have had sex with other malesover the past five years are prohibited.

Steeves said the revisions are "unrealistic" and did not go far enough, and he believes the policy is keeping safe blood out of a system that is already plagued by low inventories.

"It's putting Canadian lives at risk, and it just doesn't make any sense to me," said Steeves.

Young Liberals is advocating for a policy of behaviour-based screening, rather than sexual orientation, said Steeves.

The petition asks that the blood collection agency accept healthy blood from gay men.

"A lot of people depend on blood products. They depend on organ (donation). Those are things that gay men can't give. Something I can't give," Steeves said.

Broad consultations

An official with the Canadian Blood Services said policies relating to who can donate blood in this country are continually evolving, and he invited groups such as the youth wing of the Liberal Party of Canada to become active participants in the discussion.

Peter MacDonald, who oversees donor relations for the organization in Atlantic Canada, said the decision to revise the policy last year was done in consultation with various groups, including the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and the Canadian Federation of Students.

All of our deferral policies are there for the safety of the patient and the safety of the donor, and this one would be no exception.- Peter MacDonald

He said patient groups such as the Canadian Hemophilia Society were also consulted.

MacDonald said the Liberal party is welcomed to join the discussion, but he stressed that the policy was implemented based on "research and reasoning,"

When asked to elaborate, MacDonald said such questions would be better addressed by others in the organization.

"All of our deferral policies are there for the safety of the patient and the safety of the donor, and this one would be no exception," he said.

MacDonald challenged the argument that removing the five-year prohibition would improve blood inventories.

Inventory at low level

The organization prefers to have a five- and eight-day inventory of certain types of blood on hand at all times, but as of last week, MacDonald explained, the inventory of Type O and Type A blood was down to just three days.

If the inventory were to drop below those numbers, there's a risk that elective surgeries and other routine procedures could be delayed or rescheduled.

MacDonald said the big problem is that one in two Canadians are eligible to donate blood, but only 3.2 per cent are active blood donors.

"We still have quite a significant bandwidth of eligible population to reach out to and hopefully help the national blood inventory get to where it needs to be," he said.