Family seeks ‘truth,’ asks feds to reopen probe into woman’s death after plasma donation By: Chris Kitching Posted: 12:03 PM CDT Wednesday, May. 20, 2026 Last Modified: 5:25 PM CDT Thursday, May. 21, 2026 Updates

The family of a 22-year-old student who died last fall after donating plasma at a Grifols clinic in Winnipeg is disputing Health Canada’s conclusion that there wasn’t a direct correlation between the death and donation process.

An autopsy report listed Rodiyat Alabede’s cause of death as sudden cardiac arrest due to dilated cardiomegaly, or an enlarged heart, said family spokeswoman and blood-safety advocate Kat Lanteigne, who called on the federal government to reopen its investigation.

“Ms. Alabede’s family wants to ensure this never happens to anyone else. They have lost their beloved girl,” Lanteigne told reporters Wednesday.

“It is a tragedy that has added to their grief because it is evident that no care or concern was made to find out the truth of what happened to her.”

A plasma donation would put profound pressure and stress on a heart like Alabede’s, she said. Alabede’s family doesn’t think she was aware of her pre-existing condition.

Lanteigne accused Health Canada, which regulates plasma collection, and Manitoba’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which conducted the autopsy, of failing to conduct full investigations after Alabede died on Oct. 25, 2025.

She said reports prepared by the departments contained significant discrepancies, including the amount of plasma collected from Alabede, who went into cardiac arrest at the Taylor Avenue clinic operated by Grifols, which pays donors.

A Health Canada summary, dated March 27, listed an amount almost three times the amount cited on the autopsy report, Lanteigne said.

The partially redacted summary, obtained by the Free Press, said Alabede “collapsed” about 45 minutes into plasmapheresis, after 586 millilitres of a planned 933 ml was collected.

The document said pre-donation screening, eligibility assessment, equipment function, staff training and emergency response were all found to be compliant with standard operating procedures, “with no procedural deviations or equipment malfunctions identified.”

Abalede’s death was “temporally coincident” with plasma donation, but not caused by “donation activities,” the summary said.

Manitoba chief medical examiner John Younes said his office conducted a thorough investigation, including a review of all records related to Alabede’s intake process at Grifols, all clinic notes regarding her plasma donation procedure and all medical records concerning her cardiac arrest and efforts by clinic staff and paramedics to resuscitate her.

“Ms. Alabede’s family wants to ensure this never happens to anyone else.”

“We have no reason to believe that the records provided to us were incomplete or inaccurate,” he wrote in an email to the Free Press. “There is no evidence that anything went wrong with the plasma donation process itself.”

Younes said Alabede was speaking to someone on her cellphone with “no hint of distress” when she suddenly experienced a ventricular arrhythmia and cardiac arrest.

She had a profoundly abnormal heart that put her at a significantly increased risk of sudden cardiac death, which could happen at any time and at any level of physical activity or physiological stress, whether it be walking or even during sleep, he said.

The possibility that a subtle shift in circulating blood volume or electrolyte levels played a “contributing role” in the fatal cardiac arrhythmia cannot be ruled out because there is no way to assess the parameters during an autopsy, Younes said.

“But to definitively link her death to the plasma donation process would be speculative at best, as well as irresponsible — creating the perception (amplified by the media) that donating plasma is an inherently hazardous activity,” he wrote.

Lanteigne and Noah Schulz, provincial director of the Manitoba Health Coalition, want Ottawa to include independent experts if the investigation is reopened.

They said Grifols’ licences should be suspended until the investigation is completed. The pharmaceutical giant is based in Spain.

Lanteigne and Schulz called on the Manitoba government to ban paid plasma clinics, a step taken by B.C., Ontario and Quebec.

Schulz said a federal inquiry is needed to explore the deaths of Alabede and a Manitoban who died in January after donating plasma at a Grifols clinic in Winnipeg.

“There is no evidence that anything went wrong with the plasma donation process itself.”

Health Canada has said an assessment found no link between the deaths and the plasma-donation process. A spokesperson indicated Wednesday the department may need more time to respond to the Alabede family’s claims or concerns.

Grifols has said it conducted its own reviews, and it followed protocols in both cases. The company did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Banning paid plasma clinics is currently not on the table based on the investigations’ findings, said Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara, who noted they are open to having the conversation in the future.

“When Health Canada and the chief medical examiner come to, effectively, the same conclusion — that these tragic deaths are not linked to plasma donation — I am absolutely going to respect that conclusion,” Asagwara said.

Blood and plasma donation processes are overwhelmingly safe, the minister said.

The province has suggested that clinicians be given access to electronic patient records to ensure that a prospective plasma donor has disclosed all relevant medical information or conditions that have been documented.

Alabede, who was studying social work after moving to Canada from Nigeria, was pronounced dead shortly after she was taken to St. Boniface Hospital from the clinic.

It was unclear if it was the first time she had donated plasma. Her family is waiting for Grifols to provide her records.

Lanteigne raised questions about Grifols’ donor screening process and staff’s ability to properly recognize and respond to adverse events.

“But to definitively link her death to the plasma donation process would be speculative at best as well as irresponsible.”

While a person with dilated cardiomegaly should not donate plasma, a pre-existing medical condition — whether it’s known or not — does not abdicate a company’s responsibility to ensure a donation is safe and staff are properly trained and are able to respond appropriately to adverse events, Lanteigne said.

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She pointed to a Health Canada inspection of the Taylor Avenue clinic, which was conducted about three weeks after Alabede died.

A Dec. 22 letter written by a federal inspector cited multiple “deficiencies” and raised concerns about staff training, record-keeping and how some employees reacted to plasma collection machine alerts or alarms.

Some corrective and preventive actions from previous inspections were not implemented and/or not effective, said the letter, which was obtained by the Free Press.

—With files from Gabrielle Piché

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.