Information in American Sign Language

Canadian Blood Services welcomes and encourages people who are Deaf or have hearing loss to become regular blood donors. Becoming a donor is easy.

Step 1: Eligibility

You need to determine if you are eligible to donate blood. You can locate the "Can I Donate" section in the left-hand menu for basic eligibility requirements and the factors which may lead to a temporary or indefinite deferral. It is important to understand that many variables can determine whether or not you can donate and that final eligibility determination rests with donor clinic staff.

Step 2: Find a Location

Canadian Blood Services operates 40 permanent collection sites, 11 bone stem cell donor centres and more than 19,000 donor clinics annually. You can select "Donor Clinic Locations" from the left-hand menu to find a donor clinic. You will be asked to select your search method, either by city or postal code. You will then be presented with a main page housing donor clinic locations and hours for permanent locations as well as a scrolling menu for our many mobile clinics. To determine if there are any openings at your selected clinic, please call 1 888 2 DONATE (1-888-236-6283).

Step 3 - Scheduling an Appointment

Please call the Bell Relay Service TTY number at 1-800-268-9242 from Monday to Friday between 8:30am and 5:00pm EST and request to be connected to our National Contact Centre at
1 888 2 DONATE (1-888-236-6283) to schedule an appointment. Donors must contact the National Contact Centre to request an interpreter at the time they book their appointment. Canadian Blood Services will arrange for a qualified sign language interpreter who is a member of the Association of Visual Language Interpreters of Canada (AVLIC) to accompany the donor throughout the entire donation process at no cost to the donor. As there are no on-site interpretation services, the donor MUST book an appointment in order to ensure an interpreter is available during the donation process.

Step 4 - Pre-Donation Information

Before making your donation, you may wish to review our section on "Donation Experience" or link to our information video "It's Easy … Here's How" which can be found under the "Why Should I Donate?" section in the left hand menu.

Reminders

A reminder call from Canadian Blood Services through the Bell Relay Service will be provided two days prior to your scheduled appointment.

Cancellations

If you are unable to attend, please cancel your appointment so that the interpreter services can be cancelled and anew donor booked for the vacant appointment.

Contact Us

Canadian Blood Services is committed to making the donation process the best it can be. If you have any comments regarding any part of the process, please share them with us by e-mailing us at feedback@blood.ca.