Mr. Speaker, I have this booming voice and usually everybody listens. I guess I will tone it down for the rest of this speech.
Some people with very severe sickle cell disease require frequent blood transfusions every three to six weeks. This procedure uses a machine that separates and discards the patient's own red blood cells, while transfusing the non-sickle donor blood into the person. Because they are receiving so much donor blood on a frequent schedule, they require blood that is phenotypically similar to their own blood. This means a person with African heritage requires blood donated from a person with the same heritage. Thus, finding an appropriate donor is often an issue in Canada, although it is improving.
Once patients are started on scheduled blood transfusions, they also have to start medications to decrease the amount of iron that builds up in their body, which is a side effect of frequent transfusions. This treatment, as we all know, is very expensive, and often starts with a pump that releases the medication slowly into people through needles in their abdomens. Unfortunately, they are required to have the pump running, sometimes from eight to 24 hours a day.
One of the biggest challenges for managing sickle cell disease is when a person in crisis or with a fever sees a health care practitioner who is not familiar with the disease. Any delay in treatment can be life-threatening and, unfortunately, often is.
I have learned that in Saskatchewan we do not track the number of people with sickle cell trait, although in the last year the pediatric hematology met 14 new children in our province of Saskatchewan with carrier status. They now follow 17 children living in Saskatchewan, and many in my riding of Saskatoon—Grasswood, with the full sickle cell disease, a population, I might add, that has increased by 30% in the last nine months.
In Saskatchewan, sickle cell disease is primarily found in people who have immigrated to Canada or are first-generation Canadians. Many of the new Canadians are actually unaware of their sickle cell status, until arriving in Canada and taking their child into a hospital with a crisis. This ultimately leads to a diagnosis of sickle cell disease for the person in crisis and a diagnosis of sickle cell trait for the rest of the family, even though the family is from a country with high levels of sickle cell disease.
We have many volunteers in my city of Saskatoon. In fact, they are arranging a blood drive targeting people with African, Caribbean, East Indian, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean heritage. That will take place this March. We will have a big donate blood awareness.
The Sickle Cell Disease Association of Canada is planning to begin advocating for expanded newborn screening in my province of Saskatchewan, which would include testing for sickle-cell anemia. Remember, as the number of people with sickle cell trait increases in Canada, there is more risk of children being born with sickle cell disease.
As I see it, there are three important things we can do to combat this disease. First and foremost, we all agree we can devote more resources to research and finding a cure. We can raise awareness, like we have tonight, through Bill S-211. Last, we can encourage all regular blood donations in our communities.