Achi news desk-
In addition to having a monopoly on blood products in the province, Héma-Quebec will soon be the sole distributor of human tissue to all hospitals in Quebec.
It will add this new string to its bow in December 2024.
The Ministry of Health and Social Services granted the mandate, and hospitals have already been notified that Héma-Quebec will soon be solely responsible for tissue distribution. The organization has been engaged in tissue harvesting and processing since 2001.
Some hospitals contact Héma-Québec to place their orders, or go elsewhere if the organization is unable to supply the requested tissue. In other cases, hospitals are tasked with identifying suppliers and negotiating with them to obtain supplies.
About 50-60% of all tissues used in the Quebec hospital network come from donors harvested and prepared by Héma-Québec. The rest comes from suppliers outside of Quebec, mainly in the American market.
Starting in December, “hospitals will no longer have to search left and right” for the tissues they need. Héma-Québec will be responsible for identifying suppliers and ensuring product quality and safety.
The main purpose of the centralization of distribution is to ensure complete traceability of all human tissues used in hospitals, as has already been done for several years for blood products.
“In terms of the obvious impact on patients, there will be none, except that they can be sure that the tissues used for transplantation have been verified, that they come from a reliable source and that the quality will be there,” said Marc Germain, vice-president of medicine and innovation at Bama-Québec. “And if there is a quality problem, Héma-Québec will be there to carry out the necessary investigations to identify the source of the problem and correct the situation if necessary.”
Human tissues do not have the same requirements as organs.
Unlike organs, they must not be harvested while the heart is still beating or immediately after the cardiac cycle has stopped.
“We have up to 24 hours after the cessation of vital functions to harvest tissue,” says Germain. “We also don’t have to worry about rejection by the recipient, because the tissues are not very vascularized. There is some immune response, but it doesn’t come close to what we see in organs.”
This means that there is a much larger pool of potential donors for human tissues than for organs. About 30-50 percent of the deceased can provide suitable tissue for transplantation, compared to 1.5 percent for organs, Germain said.
When it comes to human tissues, the most common in the health network are corneas – which were very rarely transplanted in Quebec ten years ago. the others are skins, which save the lives of burn victims; bones, often used in orthopedic hip replacement surgeries; among the rest; Tendons, used mainly in sports medicine, as well as heart and lung valves.
There is no waiting list problem for most human tissues, with the exception of pulmonary valves, which are used more and more by surgeons who are abandoning artificial valves for all sorts of advantages.
“We began to identify American suppliers who may have excess pulmonary valves to supply to the Quebec network,” Germain said. “If there is a wait (for the tissue), it has more to do with the fact that it takes up space in the operating room, but it is not because there is a shortage of tissues that this type of surgery is usually delayed.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on April 26, 2024.
Canadian Press health content is funded through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. The Canadian Press is solely responsible for editorial choices.
