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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.
A spokesperson for the Spain-based company said the licence suspension has no impact on its current operations, since collection had already been paused.
The company is working with Health Canada on a reopening plan for its collection centres, the spokesperson said in an emailed statement sent Wednesday.
As of Sept. 1, the company has acquired full ownership of its Canadian operations, the spokesperson wrote, and since then it has been retraining staff and strengthening its procedures.
Fatal cardiac arrest during donation
Grifols 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.
Katherine Lanteigne, an advocate for Alabede and her family, said she was shocked Health Canada didn’t suspend Grifols’s licences across Canada, noting the agency has found issues during inspections at other locations, including Grifols locations in Regina and Calgary, and its Oakville, Ont., head office.
“The same activities that are happening at the Taylor site are happening other Grifols sites countrywide,” she said.
Lanteigne said the only path forward is a police investigation into Alabede’s death.
“My biggest fear is that they will not be held accountable in the appropriate way,” she said.
Health Canada announced Wednesday it has suspended the licence of the Grifols plasma collection centre on Taylor Avenue in Winnipeg, saying it failed to address deficiencies found by the health regulator during a recent inspection. That’s the same location where a 22-year-old woman suffered a fatal cardiac arrest while donating plasma last year.
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.ย
Health Canada said it proposed suspending Grifols’s licence on Aug. 13 and gave the company “an opportunity to be heard.”ย
That same day, Grifols announced it was pausing plasma collection at all of its Canadian locations. It described the pause as voluntary and proactive.ย
Before the pause and suspension, virtually all of Grifols’s locations were already under the regulator’s scrutiny.
After its head office in Oakville 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.ย
“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.
After the two deaths in Winnipeg, Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara previously said a ban on paid plasma donation in the province was one option on the table.
In an emailed statement Wednesday, the minister said “all options remain” around paid plasma collection in the province, and said “this latest development will be part of that consideration.”
The minister said they expect Grifols to fully address the identified deficiencies before collection resumes.
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