Grifols, a Spanish pharmaceutical company, is the only major commercial collector of plasma in Canada and operates 17 sites across the country.Shannon VanRaes/The Globe and Mail
The family of a young woman who died after donating plasma in Winnipeg is calling for a new investigation into her death after finding inconsistencies between federal and provincial government reports and the woman’s autopsy record.
However, the office of Manitoba’s chief medical examiner says it supports Health Canada’s findings that the woman’s death coincided with, but did not result from, her plasma donation.
The woman, Rodiyat Alabede, was a 22-year-old University of Winnipeg student in her final year of studying social work when she died on Oct. 25, 2025.
She had been selling plasma at a Grifols collection centre on Taylor Avenue in Winnipeg. Plasma is a golden-coloured, protein-rich fluid found in blood that is used to manufacture some types of medicine.
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Grifols, a Spanish pharmaceutical company, is the only major commercial collector of plasma in Canada and operates 17 sites across the country as part of a deal signed with Canadian Blood Services in 2022. Grifols pays donors, while CBS does not.
The deaths of Ms. Alabede and another donor at a different centre on Innovation Drive, who died in January and has not been identified, became public through media reports on March 11. On April 1, Health Canada imposed conditions on Grifols’ licences after finding “recurring, systemic deficiencies” at the company’s collection centres over multiple inspections. The conditions included limits on the number of donors and improved supervision of staff.
Then on April 3, Health Canada announced it found “no linkage” between the circumstances of the deaths and the plasma donation process. Manitoba’s office of the chief medical examiner, which looks into all sudden, unexpected or violent deaths in the province, investigated the deaths and said it “did not identify anything that was inconsistent” with Health Canada’s review.
Advocate and activist Kat Lanteigne is fighting for accountability on behalf of Alabede who died after donating plasma at a Grifols facility in Winnipeg.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Kat Lanteigne, a public-health advocate who Ms. Alabede’s family has asked to speak on their behalf, said recently obtained documents about Ms. Alabede’s death show conflicting information that demands a full investigation.
With the family’s permission, The Globe and Mail has viewed a copy of the autopsy report written by a Winnipeg physician shortly after the young woman died. The family obtained the document from the chief medical examiner. (Ms. Alabede came to Canada for university after attending high school in Nigeria. She has a close family member who lives in Canada, who does not want to speak publicly.)
Separately, The Globe has obtained a copy of a “medical summary” of Ms. Alabede’s death that was prepared by unnamed Health Canada personnel and sent to members of the House of Commons health committee in late April. Its contents have not been previously reported. The Globe has recently reported on a December letter written by a Health Canada inspector that followed a visit to the Grifols site in Winnipeg where Ms. Alabede donated.
Donating plasma involves blood leaving a person’s body, entering a machine that separates the fluid into red blood cells and plasma, and then the blood cells (with added saline) are inserted back into the donor several times over the course of a donation.
The autopsy says Ms. Alabede became unresponsive 45 minutes into a plasma donation on Oct. 25. It says her heart rhythm deteriorated and then stopped.
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The autopsy says efforts to revive her were unsuccessful. She was pronounced dead just 13 minutes after admission to hospital.
The cause of death is listed as cardiac arrest. It notes she had cardiomegaly, or an enlarged heart.
The Health Canada medical summary sent to MPs uses different language. It says the donor “collapsed” during the plasma donation and was “pronounced deceased later that day.”
The cause of death is redacted, but the summary says the autopsy concluded there was “no evidence of a causal relationship to donation procedures, equipment or products.”
It concludes that the death was “temporarily coincident with plasma donation but not caused by donation activities.”
The summary also says donor screening, equipment function, staff training and emergency response at Grifols’ Taylor Avenue clinic “were all found to be compliant” with applicable standard operating procedures.
That does not align with the inspector’s letter, written in December, that describes a visit to the clinic that found what it called multiple deficiencies in Grifols’ operations, including concerns that staff were not well trained and did not always know what to do when machines displayed alarms.
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Ms. Lanteigne said the discrepancy between the reports shows the need for a panel of experts, including those with expertise in plasma donation and cardiology, to re-examine Ms. Alabede’s death.
“There is a combined effort to dismiss Rodiyat’s death because she had a pre-existing heart condition, and attempts to muddy the waters to alleviate themselves from the incredible negligence of a plasma donation gone wrong,” Ms. Lanteigne said.
When asked about any inconsistencies between reports, Manitoba chief medical examiner John Younes said it was “irresponsible” to question the findings.
“Individuals with pathology of this nature may develop a fatal cardiac arrhythmia at any time – walking across the street, driving a motor vehicle, while lying in the dentist’s chair, or even in their sleep,” he said in an e-mail.
He said he did not believe the plasma donation procedure would have caused undue stress on her body and she had only given a “relatively small volume of plasma” when her health problems began.
Ms. Lanteigne said there was no evidence in the chief examiner’s work that there was any attempt to investigate the way a plasma donation could trigger a cardiac arrest.
Another inconsistency was the amount that Ms. Alabede had donated after 45 minutes. According to the autopsy, which was released by Dr. Younes’ office, only 200 millilitres had been collected when the health problems began. However, the Health Canada summary said 586 mL of a planned 933 mL had been collected.
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Dr. Younes said he believed the 586 mL figure was the correct one, and that it was supplied by Grifols. He said he still considered that to be a small amount. He said he did not know why there was a discrepancy between the reports.
Health Canada did not respond to questions by deadline.
Grifols said it conducted an internal review of the death and also received a copy of the medical examiner’s report.
The company said there was no evidence of a machine malfunction or staff error that contributed to the death. “All assessments that were conducted show no direct link to the donation process,” the company said in an unsigned statement.
Ms. Lanteigne said Ms. Alabede’s family had been contacting Grifols for more information, including to obtain her donation records, but had not been able to speak with anyone for weeks.
Grifols said Tuesday afternoon they were aware someone contacted their donor centre but were “unable to validate that this person was indeed family.”
Ms. Lanteigne said the company finally responded to Ms. Alabede’s family late Tuesday to begin the process of accessing her records.
Deaths from plasma donation are very rare. Health Canada has said it has records of three deaths that are connected to plasma donation in the past 10 years, including the ones in October and January, and all of the deaths occurred in Winnipeg.