Health Canada suspends Grifols’s licence at Winnipeg plasma location

Health Canada suspends licence to collect plasma at Winnipeg Grifols location

Company didn’t effectively implement 'corrective and preventive actions,' agency says

An embattled for-profit plasma centre in Winnipeg is now officially suspended from collecting the blood component, after Health Canada cited concerns about its "quality management system" in the wake of a donor's death last year.

The federal agency suspended Grifols's Taylor Avenue plasma centre licence "effective immediately," the regulator announced in an email Wednesday afternoon.

Advocates have been calling on the federal government to crack down on the company after CBC News reported two people died in the past year after donating plasma at Grifols clinics in Winnipeg, including the Taylor location.

Grifols had already temporarily shut down collection at the rest of its Canadian centres last month, citing "unfounded attention" on paid plasma collection in Canada.

"Grifols had not effectively implemented some corrective and preventive actions and, overall, it failed to demonstrate that the Taylor Avenue site has implemented an effective quality management system," Health Canada said Wednesday.

CBC has reached out to Grifols for comment.

The Spain-based company operates 17 centres in Canada that pay people for their plasma, including two in Winnipeg.

The now-suspended Taylor Avenue centre is where Rodiyat Alabede, 22, suffered a fatal cardiac arrest while donating plasma on Oct. 25, 2025.

"A temporary suspension is not enough," said Katherine Lanteigne, an advocate for Alabede and her family. She said she wants to see all Grifols sites across Canada suspended.

"Justice will not be served for Ms. Alabede and blood donors in Canada will not be safe if leadership at Grifols are not held accountable for their egregious safety violations."

Private clinic Grifols says it's pausing all plasma collection in Canada

The federal regulator initially inspected the Taylor Avenue site roughly a month after Alabede died and found multiple deficiencies it directed Grifols to fix.

After inspecting it twice more over the summer, Health Canada warned Grifols it could suspend the company's licence if the issues weren't addressed.

Health Canada said it proposed suspending Grifols's licence on Aug. 13 and gave the company "an opportunity to be heard."

That same day, Grifols announced it was pausing plasma collection at all of its Canadian locations. It described the pause as voluntary and proactive.

Before the pause and suspension, virtually all of Grifols's locations were already under the regulator's scrutiny.

After its head office in Oakville, Ont., failed an inspection, Health Canada slapped new terms and conditions on its licence for "recurring, systemic deficiencies" that applied to 16 of its centres.

The Winnipeg Innovation Drive site, officially known as Grifols Canada Plasma II Inc., was left out because it operates under a separate licence.

Health Canada said it will work with Grifols as it tries to restart operations and implement corrective action plans.

"Prior to resuming operations, Health Canada will verify Grifols's compliance with our regulatory requirements and we will not hesitate to take further action if needed," the agency's email said.

Michelle Allan is an award-winning investigative journalist based in Winnipeg. She's worked with CBC Thunder Bay, CBC's national investigative unit, CBC Ottawa and ran a pop-up bureau in Kingston, Ont. She won a 2021 Canadian Association of Journalists national award for investigative reporting and was a finalist in 2023 and 2024. You can reach her at michelle.allan@cbc.ca.