Online petition calls for the return of Cape Breton’s blood donation clinic – CBC

Online petition to bring donation centre back to Sydney reaches 5,000 signatures

Sep 11, 2023

A petition launched by a Cape Breton woman in an effort to reopen a blood donation clinic has garnered more than 5,000 signatures online.

The clinic closed in 2015 after Canadian Blood Services deemed it not cost effective. The nearest blood donation centre for residents of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) is more than 130 kilometres away, a mobile clinic in Port Hawkesbury.

“It’s very personal to me because my grandmother — many a time — had blood transfusions. Without those, she wouldn’t have been alive for as long as she was,” said Diane Porter, the organizer behind the petition.

Porter has been a blood donor since the day she reached 17, the legal age to donate.

“It was something that I was so excited to do. That’s all I wanted to do that day,” she said.

She says the lack of mobile clinics in CBRM is a loss to the community.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/cape-bretoners-want-blood-clinic-back-1.6961653