In recent months, Grifols has come under fire.
Safety concerns
This follows the company’s other deficiencies found at its Cdn plasma donation centers. Worries about the safety of donors have continued to rise. This comes amid concerns raised by the deaths of two people in Winnipeg after they donated plasma at Grifols facilities. The company now runs 17 donation centers across Canada, including its first center that opened in Winnipeg in 2022.
In 2022, Grifols signed a 15-year joint venture partnership with Blood Services Canada to focus on increasing at-home collection of plasma. The company’s commitment to expanding its operations became evident with the acquisition of existing plasma-processing plants in Montreal for over $500 million in 2020. Yet even in light of these expansions, troubling questions have been raised about the operational standards at its major facilities.
These tragedies in Winnipeg should have sent the alarm bells ringing when TWO people died after donating plasma in Grifols centers. The inaugural death took place on October 27, 2025, at the Taylor Avenue center. After that, the second death occurred on February 3, 2026, at the Innovation Drive site. Consequently, Grifols announced plans to conduct an internal review of its procedures and protocols after the first two such incidents.
Health Canada inspected five Grifols facilities, uncovering a pattern of serious non-compliance. Chaos inside the Calgary facility The inspection of the Calgary facility that started on December 2, 2025 and ended on December 9 found non-compliance. The Regina centre did this by permitting a donor to give plasma on two separate occasions within 48 hours. This practice contravened nearly absolute safety protocol.
Those failures were reflected in preliminary results from an inspection at Grifols’ HQ in Oakville, which started on January 28, 2026. Inspectors listed similar problems at the Oakville, Regina, and Calgary facilities. They exposed insufficient donor suitability assessments and flagged troubling personnel policies. Each one of the five inspection reports found major deficiencies. They specifically called attention to lack of follow-through on mistakes and crashes, and inability to keep up with updates to operational procedures.
At least in part, Grifols has acted in response to this growing advocacy and evidence. They’ve since crafted and consolidated strong corrective action plans for all affected Calgary and Regina centers. The company’s first two quarters of 2021 underscored its promise to prioritize safety and environmental compliance.
“Based on the information available at this time, we have no reason to believe that there is a correlation between the donors’ passing and plasma donation.” – Grifols
A representative from Grifols reassured the public regarding safety measures:
“Health Canada’s robust inspection framework and associated regulations help us to ensure that we are operating within their guidance and in pursuit of continuous improvement.” – Grifols
Even Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara is worried about donor safety. Indeed, he has been a strong advocate for complete and objective investigations following the most recent incidents.
“We expect a thorough and transparent investigation, including a clear understanding of whether all safety protocols were followed.” – Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara
Asagwara underscored the importance of maintaining donor confidence in the system:
“People who donate plasma need to know their safety will never be put at risk.” – Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara
The Scottish Government minister reiterated that nothing should be ruled out. Enrollment in Grifols wholesale operationalization standard centers are continuing investigations of the communities,
Health Canada went on to explain that not all non-compliance ratings are due to major observations. The agency pointed out that a lack of compliance may be based on non-serious observations. It is when regulated formula establishments no longer have a handle on their regulated activities.
“Not all inspections rated non-compliant are because of a critical observation.” – Health Canada
Though the inspections continue and Grifols has been taking corrective actions still, Grifols is deeply invested in strengthening its compliance efforts. They then collaborated with outside experts to ensure the problems they found wouldn’t recur. Yet at the same time, they did this while still keeping their centers open throughout this time.
