{"id":2232,"date":"2013-09-30T11:37:19","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T15:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/52.229.122.34\/en\/?p=2232"},"modified":"2017-04-03T12:15:11","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T16:15:11","slug":"building-new-hope-for-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/newsroom\/building-new-hope-for-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Building New Hope for Patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadian Blood Services\u2019 and The Ottawa Hospital celebrate first step towards building Canada\u2019s first national public cord blood bank<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

September 30, 2013 <\/strong>\u2013 Starting today, mothers delivering at\u00a0The Ottawa Hospital\u2019s General and Civic Campuses,<\/a> will have an opportunity to donate their babies\u2019 umbilical cord blood as part of Canadian Blood Services\u2019 initial step in building Canada\u2019s first national public cord blood bank.<\/p>\n

With $6.3M in charitable donations so far, once completed, the National Public Cord Blood Bank, together with the help of Canadians through Canadian Blood Services\u2019 $12.5M fundraising campaign \u201cFor All Canadians\u201d, is positioned to reach an approximate target of 18,000 donated cord blood units over six years. Ottawa represents the first of four collection cities and one of two Canadian Blood Services manufacturing and storage facilities contained within the original east-to-west funding agreement with provincial and territorial ministers of health. On March 14, 2011, provincial and territorial ministries of health (except Qu\u00e9bec) announced a combined investment of $48 million, including $12.5 million in fundraising, to create a national public umbilical cord blood bank.<\/p>\n

At any given time there are almost 1,000 Canadian patients looking for an unrelated stem cell match to survive. This is exceedingly difficult for many \u2018hard-to-match\u2019 patients when their best chance at finding a compatible donor may lie within umbilical cord blood stem cells. Cord blood stem cells have unique abilities that make them easier to use for transplantation;<\/strong> even when a match between donor and patient is not perfect. This is compounded by patients of diverse heritage where their only hope for a match may come from umbilical cord blood, and not from an adult stem cell donor. Ethically-diverse donors continue to be largely underrepresented on the OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network. By building a national public cord blood bank dedicated to the unique needs of Canadians, patients will have an additional opportunity for finding their match and thereby surviving their illnesses and cancers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are elated to be launching this first phase of the National Public Cord Blood Bank with The Ottawa Hospital\u201d says Dr. Heidi Elmoazzen, Director of the National Public Cord Blood Bank. \u201cA lot of hard work has been put into Ottawa and we are very excited to be able to continue building Canada’s first national public cord blood bank in Brampton (GTA), Edmonton and Vancouver by mid-2014.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it were not for a stem cell transplant; Nate Lupton would not be alive today.\u00a0 Nate was born on April 7, 2010 and diagnosed with Wiskott Aldrich Syndrome, a rare immune deficiency that affects one in 250,000 live male births. The disease impacts the body\u2019s ability to produce platelets and fight infection. For many of these patients, the only cure lies within a stem cell transplant. At 8 months old, Nate received his cord blood stem cells from an international donor and was transplant at Toronto\u2019s Sick Kids Hospital<\/p>\n

\u201cCord blood has given my son a chance at a normal life and to experience all things great in life\u201d says Amy Lupton, Nate\u2019s mother. \u201cBut this cord came from outside Canada and we were lucky. Canadians now have the chance to change this. Starting with The Ottawa Hospital<\/a> and moving across Canada, moms can help more Canadian stem cell patients like my son, find their match by voluntarily donating their baby\u2019s cord blood.<\/p>\n

Healthy pregnant women, 18 years of age or older, 34 weeks or later in their pregnancy and not having a multiple pregnancy can donate their baby\u2019s cord blood with their signed consent. For more information on the National Public Cord Blood Bank, please visit www.blood.ca\/cordblood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About Canadian Blood Services OneMatch Stem Cell & Marrow
\n<\/em><\/strong>Canadian Blood Services\u2019 OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network is a program dedicated to recruiting healthy, committed volunteer donors for patients in need of blood (hematopoietic) stem cells. OneMatch also conducts searches for matched, unrelated donors for patients; ensures donors are healthy and able to donate; and, coordinates the collection and delivery of stem cells in Canada and around the world.\u00a0 As an accredited member of the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA), OneMatch represents an important part of an international group of 71 registries and 48 cord blood banks that transmit their donor HLA typing results to Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide (BMDW). As a result, when searching on behalf of Canadian patients, OneMatch has access to more than 22 million volunteer donors in 51 countries and more than 585,000 cord blood units from 48 cord banks in 32 countries. As part of Canadian Blood Services, the provincial and territorial Ministries of Health provide operational funding to OneMatch. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.onematch.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About \u2018Campaign For All Canadians
\n<\/strong>Canadian Blood Services\u2019 national fundraising campaign, \u2018Campaign For All Canadians\u2019 has been initiated to help build Canada\u2019s first national public cord blood bank. Through its 3-year campaign, the \u2018Campaign For All Canadians\u2019 will help raise funds to assist Canadian Blood Services transform stem cell donation in Canada by creating the National Public Cord Blood Bank. The National Public Cord Blood Bank is managed by Canadian Blood Services, on behalf of the provinces and territories except Qu\u00e9bec, which runs its own cord blood banking program through H\u00e9ma-Qu\u00e9bec.<\/p>\n

For more information contact:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Annie Barrette
\nCommunications Specialist
\nCanadian Blood Services
\nT: 705.688.7341
\nC: 705.665.6514<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canadian Blood Services\u2019 and The Ottawa Hospital celebrate first step towards building Canada\u2019s first national public cord blood bank September 30, 2013 \u2013 Starting today, mothers delivering at\u00a0The Ottawa Hospital\u2019s General and Civic Campuses, will have an opportunity to donate their babies\u2019 umbilical cord blood as part of Canadian Blood Services\u2019 initial step in building […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsroom"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}