Before the death of a 22-year-old Winnipeg woman, the machine being used to collect her plasma issued an alert that meant staff should terminate the procedure, however documents show this step was not followed and she later went into cardiac arrest.
The family of Rodiyat Alabede were given copies of unredacted documents from Health Canada including inspection reports and a medical summary of her death in October last year after giving plasma at Grifols Plasma Donation Centre on Taylor Avenue in Winnipeg.
The documents “detail the failure of Grifols technicians to terminate her plasma collection when the … machine instructed them to do so,” wrote Katherine Lanteigne, a safe-blood advocate who is acting as a representative for Alabede’s family, in an email statement.
“Alerts went off on more than one occasion: actions if responded to correctly may have saved her life.”
Lanteigne said learning of what happened before Alabede died has left the family with “immense anger and sorrow.” She repeated her calls for Health Canada to reopen its investigation into her death.
“The family wants answers as to why there has been such a trail of deception regarding the loss of their beloved family member,” she wrote.
Alerts during plasma collection
The Health Canada documents reveal the machine collecting Alabede’s plasma issued four alerts while she was giving plasma.
An internal investigation report by Grifols on Alabede’s adverse reaction, dated Nov. 10, also documented a fifth alert.
This final alert, which states vein pressure has risen too quickly, was received immediately after Alabede started showing reaction signs.
“The donor experienced a sudden loss of consciousness and began convulsing while speaking on the phone,” the investigation report said.
The procedure was paused after this happened, the report states.
When one of the earlier alerts went off — specifically related to the amount of pressure recorded inside the vein, the documents say the standard of practice was to stop the plasma collection.
“This was not followed,” according to the unredacted inspection of the Taylor location following Alabede’s death on Oct. 25, 2025.
The alerts listed in the inspection document occur when the vein pressure has reached its maximum limit or when vein pressure rises too quickly, according to a memo by Grifols sent to all staff in Canada.
The Spain-based company sent the memo on Dec. 5, over a month after Alabede’s death, telling staff they must follow specific instructions when these alerts happen.
This includes instructions that if the return pressure is greater than 40 millimetres of mercury at 0 millilitres per minute return rate, the collection must be terminated.
Documents from Health Canada show that staff resumed Alabede’s collection when the return pressure was 52 millimetres of mercury.
The Dec. 22 inspection document, known as a compliance verification report, found staff were not aware of the requirement to terminate under these circumstances.
Tyshiana Jackson, a phlebotomist who worked for two different plasma donation companies in the United States, said this means the machine would be indicating the blood wasn’t properly moving through the lines.
Jackson said it is common to get alerts, but the number in this case raises questions.
“Why are they occurring? And why was she not stopped after maybe her second or third alert occurring?” she said.
Health Canada investigated Alabede’s death and concluded in March there was no connection found between her death and the donation process.
A spokesperson for the federal health regulator said they were unable to respond to CBC’s request for comment prior to publication.
In a rare interview, Manitoba’s chief medical examiner said the four initial alerts before the procedure ended have no impact on his determination that Alabede died of cardiac arrhythmia due to dilated cardiomegaly — an enlarged heart.
“Through all four of those alerts, there was no evidence of any distress on the part of the deceased,” Dr. John Younes said.
“I’ll leave it to Health Canada to address in terms of whether or not they followed their protocols. My job is to determine the cause of death.”
‘No way to prove it’: chief medical examiner
There is no way to determine through an autopsy if by giving plasma and possibly changing her blood volume or calcium levels it triggered the fatal arrhythmia, he said.
“It’s certainly possible that some of these subtle changes that ordinarily wouldn’t have been harmful could have been harmful to her,” Younes said.
“There’s just no way to prove it at post-mortem examination.”
A second person died in Winnipeg in January 2026 after giving plasma at Grifols’ Innovation Drive location. The cause of death has not been publicly released.
Grifols, a for-profit international company that specializes in producing plasma medicines, has more than a dozen paid plasma collection centres in Canada.
A spokesperson for the company said they would welcome the opportunity to meet directly with the family and answer their questions.
All assessments, including Health Canada’s review and the chief medical examiner’s report, show no link to the donation process, the spokesperson wrote in an email statement.
Family given revised copy of medical examiner’s report
This also comes as Alabede’s family was given a new revised report from Manitoba’s chief medical examiner.
An official with Manitoba Justice said some information was missing due to “several inaccuracies” in the initial report prepared by a pathologist, according to a letter sent to Lanteigne on June 4.
The revised report now includes the corrected amount of plasma collected and a new summary of Alabede’s death.
Originally, the examiner’s report said 200 ml of plasma had been collected before the adverse reaction — this was in contradiction to Health Canada’s own medical summary which said 586 ml had been collected.
Younes said this came after there was a mix-up by the pathologist between the amount of red blood cells collected versus the amount of plasma.
The revised report just brings more concerns, said Lanteigne, who called for an external pathologist to be assigned to the case.
Four alerts resolved: justice official
Plasma is collected through a machine that draws blood from a person’s arm, then separates the plasma from red blood cells and platelets, before returning those other components to the person.
The first four alerts happened early in the donation process and were resolved after repositioning Alabede’s arm or the intravenous line, the Manitoba Justice official wrote in the letter to Lanteigne.
Isabelle Rabusseau, Director of Nursing Services at Héma-Québec, said the main issue with high pressure in the vein is that it might burst.
When these alerts happen they are trained to try and resolve it, “if it doesn’t work, we stop,” she said in French.
Héma-Québec is the non-profit organization responsible for managing the blood supply, human tissue, and stem cell donations in the province of Quebec. The organization does not pay for plasma, but relies on donations.
The internal report created by Grifols following Alabede’s death said she had a seizure during the process and eventually lost consciousness.
The investigation report said she was awake and breathing when the centre’s physician started to perform life saving measures.
However, she could not verbalize her symptoms and then became unresponsive, the report states.
