This month Camosun Pride worked to develop a partnership with Canadian Blood Services to encourage our amazing students to donate blood. Blood donation is incredibly important and there’s no question that this simple act saves lives.
Currently, there’s a lifetime deferral for men who have sex with men. The current policy doesn’t take into consideration lifestyle or other risk factors and, because of this, is discriminatory.
This deferral policy comes directly from Health Canada and isn’t amendable by Canadian Blood Services.
The spirit of Pride’s partnership with Canadian Blood Services is to educate students about the current deferral policies and encourage them to send the minister of Health Canada, Leona Aglukkaq, a letter asking for review of the policies, and to donate blood.
During the next few months, Camosun Pride and Canadian Blood Services will be on campus promoting the features mentioned above as well as doing blood typing. We hope to create educated, lifelong blood donors here at Camosun.
Please help us change discriminatory policies and please help us save lives.