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A representative for the family of an international student who died after donating plasma at a Winnipeg for-profit centre is calling for Health Canada to reopen its investigation after learning her cause of death.
Katherine Lanteigne, a safe-blood advocate who is acting as a representative for Rodiyat Alabede’s family, said the 22-year-old went into sudden cardiac arrest after giving plasma at the Grifols Plasma Donation Centre on Taylor Avenue.
“The facts we have today demonstrate that there may have been multiple contributing factors to her death and none of them are her fault,” Lanteigne said at a Wednesday news conference with the Manitoba Health Coalition, a health advocacy group.
“She was not riding a bike or going for a swim when she died. She was donating plasma.”
Citing the chief medical examiner’s report, Lanteigne said Alabede’s cause of death was dilated cardiomegaly — an enlarged heart.
Lanteigne and the Manitoba Health Coalition said they held the news conference to “correct the record” on the circumstances surrounding her death on Oct. 25, 2025.
“The pressure and stress a plasma donation would put on a donor’s heart with this condition would be profound,” she said.
‘She did not go to Grifols to die’
They do not believe that Alabede was aware of her condition and so far, the family has not been given access to her donation records.
The family does not want this to happen to anyone else, Lanteigne said.
“They have lost their beloved girl,” she said. “Rodiyat donated that day to save the life of another person. She did not go to Grifols to die.”
Dr. John Younes, Manitoba’s chief medical examiner, said his office completed a thorough investigation into Alabede’s death.
In an email statement sent after Wednesday’s news conference, Younes said it is “irresponsible” to definitively link her death to the donation process.
Doing so would be “speculative at best” and would create “the perception (amplified by the media) that donating plasma is an inherently hazardous activity,” he wrote.
Alabede had a profoundly abnormal heart and was at an increased risk of fatal cardiac arrhythmias, which could “happen at any time and at any level of physical activity or physiologic stress, whether it be walking across the street, driving a motor vehicle, sitting in the dentist’s chair, or even during sleep,” Younes’s statement said.
The possibility a subtle shift in circulating blood volume or electrolyte levels played a contributing role in the fatal arrhythmia can’t be ruled out, he said, but there is no way to assess these parameters through an autopsy.
The cause of death was a “fatal cardiac arrhythmia arising in the setting of dilated cardiomyopathy,” said Younes. The cardiac arrest occurred during the donation process, and there was no sign of an allergic reaction, he wrote.
Younes said his office reviewed all records related to Alabede’s intake process at Grifols, clinic notes and medical records.
He has “no reason to believe that the records provided to us were incomplete or inaccurate,” he wrote.
A Manitoba cardiologist, who did not review Alabede’s medical records and was speaking on generalities, said the process of giving plasma can cause stress on the body that could impact someone with a serious heart condition.
Dr. Justin Cloutier, an assistant professor in cardiology at the University of Manitoba, said the donation process involves using citrate, which thins the blood and can lower someone’s blood pressure.
“Which is not a big deal for patients who don’t have heart conditions,” he said. “But it can potentially lead to dangerous heart rhythm issues if you do have underlying heart problems.”
Plasma is a protein-rich liquid that helps treat bleeding disorders, liver diseases and cancer.
It 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.
This process, Cloutier said, wouldn’t impact someone with a healthy heart, but someone with heart myopathy can be affected by the act of drawing fluid out and then returning it.
“If your pump’s not working and you’re flogging it with lots of fluid or drawing a bunch of fluid out, you are not going to be able to compensate the same way,” Cloutier said.
CBC first reported in March that two people died after giving plasma at separate Grifols centres in Winnipeg.
Alabede died on Oct. 25, after friends say she gave plasma at the Grifols Plasma Donation Centre on Taylor Avenue.
A second person’s death was reported as a fatal reaction following a donation at Grifols Innovation Drive location in Winnipeg in January 2026.
Health Canada reviewed both deaths, but said in March the investigations were concluded, and there was no connection between the deaths and the donation process.
However, the federal health regulator later revealed that if an undisclosed or unknown pre-existing medical condition contributed to the fatal reaction, it would not be considered related to the donation process.
Lanteigne and the Manitoba Health Coalition are calling for Health Canada to reopen its investigation into Alabede’s death, and a letter has been written to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Lanteigne said.
She and the coalition also want Health Canada to suspend Grifols’s licence to collect plasma.
Grifols, a Spain-based company that specializes in producing plasma medicines, has over a dozen plasma collection centres in Canada.
The for-profit company has operated in Winnipeg since 2022, after acquiring Canadian Plasma Resources. It runs two centres locally — one on Taylor Avenue and one on Innovation Drive — where people are paid for their plasma.
A spokesperson for federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel said in an email statement that “Canada has one of the safest blood systems in the world.”
Health Canada inspected and imposed strict conditions on Grifols this year, spokesperson Alexandre Bergeron wrote.
The agency “will continue to closely monitor the situation,” and will take “any additional action necessary” to protect the blood supply and donors, Bergeron said.
When the deaths were first revealed, Manitoba’s health minister said banning paid plasma was on the table.
However, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the results of Health Canada’s investigation have satisfied them and paid plasma will not be banned as a result of these deaths.
“However, the conversation around paid plasma is a live one, nationally — it’s certainly alive in Manitoba — and it’s part of a bigger conversation about capacity in this space,” the minister said Wednesday.
A representative for the family of Rodiyat Alabede, an international student who died after donating plasma at a Winnipeg for-profit centre, says she had an enlarged heart and the process would have caused profound stress on her body.
