Quebec blood ban: Donation wait times after same-sex sexual encounters will be dropped

Dale Hamilton has wanted to donate blood his entire life.

"I always looked up to my father," Hamilton told CTV News. "He used to always give blood when I was a child, and I thought that was such a heroic thing for him to do."

As a young adult, Hamilton gave blood not once, but twice. But when he went to the clinic a third time, he was turned away.

"At this point, I had started having sex with men," he explained. "The nurse was very rude with me and made me feel very uncomfortable -- very unwelcome, like I was not supposed to be there at all."

It's an all-too-familiar experience for many queer men and transgender women in Canada.

But new changes to the screening process mean Hamilton, an openly gay man, will be able to donate blood again -- although he'll have to wait a little longer than most other Canadians because of where he lives.

Quebec's blood donation network works a little differently from the rest of the country's. While other provinces fall beneath the Canadian Blood Service (CBS), Quebec operates under its own agency, Hema-Quebec.

Both the CBS and Hema-Quebec plan to make the donation process more inclusive by eliminating the three-month deferral period for men who have sex with men, as well as transgender women.

However, Quebec is taking a more gradual approach: while the CBS aims to overhaul the screening process for both blood and plasma donations by this Fall, Hema-Quebec is focusing on plasma alone.

The provincial organization told CTV News it plans to include blood donations later on, by the spring of 2023.

Simon Gamache is the executive director of Montreal Pride. While he's thrilled about Hema-Quebec's steps toward inclusivity, he wants Quebec to move at the same pace as the rest of Canada.

"I mean, they've already committed to a timeline, that's good news," he said. "But you know, that's six, seven, eight more months of waiting, and that's very disappointing."

Hamilton agrees.

"It doesn't make sense to me that it has to be in phases," he said. "It should be implemented right away."

In a press release, Hema-Quebec explained that additional safety measures go into processing plasma, which is why they're beginning with this step.

"The new approach is also aimed at collecting supporting data that will make it possible, in a second stage, to expand the measure to blood and platelet donations," read the release.

'CORRECTING AN INJUSTICE'

Regardless of the delayed timeline, Gamache says the news is a huge step for Quebec's queer community.

"It took so long," he said. "First it was a lot, it was a lifetime ban. And [then] five years, then one year, then three months."

The policy preventing gay men from giving blood was implemented in the early 90s after thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated donations.

Since then, Canada has slowly relaxed its guidelines for eligible blood donors. Getting to this point has been years in the making, Gamache says.

The updated vetting processes for both the CBS and Hema-Quebec will screen based on sexual behaviours rather than sexual orientation and gender.

"HIV does not discriminate. HIV can affect everyone," he said.

Quebec political analyst Raphael Melancon made a similar point.

"It's about your sexual habits, your behaviour," he said. "If you're a straight man and you don't have protected sex with many partners, you're much more at risk of contracting HIV than a gay man who is responsible and who protects himself."

For Melancon, it's personal: like Dale Hamilton, he's been rejected from donating blood in the past, an experience he said has stuck with him.

"I felt discrimination solely based on my sexual orientation," he said.

"So really, we're correcting here an injustice, an injustice that has been going on for way too long."