Health committee  Absolutely. To put the challenges surrounding recruitment into perspective, I would say that, last year, we recruited more than 6,500 mothers who had agreed, meaning they had signed the famous consent form discussed earlier. As Dr. Wall said, it is perfectly normal to have to comply with international rules.

Health committee  That is every year, in terms of ethnic groups and the various HLA tests required. Clearly, that applies to mature banks. We are not there yet, because we are still a young and rapidly growing bank. A mature bank, however, will use, on average, 2% of its cord blood units a year.

Health committee  Yes, exactly. That is already the case. There are hospital centres in the Vancouver area that are performing cord blood transplants. The Children's & Women's Health Centre of British Columbia and the Vancouver General Hospital have transplanted three and six units respectively.

Health committee  If you look at it the other way around, it is actually the province of the transplant hospital. A public bank, such as Héma-Québec's, supplies the cord blood. The hospital doing the transplant is responsible for the costs; it is the one that has to pay the bill. So if a hospital in Vancouver is performing the transplant, the British Columbia government is responsible for assuming the costs of that cord blood, regardless of where it comes from.

Health committee  It works the same way.

Health committee  Yes, when the committee met on November 2, I believe Dr. Wall said that Canada needed between 20,000 and 50,000 units. So we are in that range with 40,000 units in Canada.

Health committee  As far as cost goes, you need to keep two things in mind. What Dr. Wall just said is absolutely true. The cost of cord blood units from international banks varies between US$20,000, which is especially low, and US$30,000 or US$35,000. Units that come from Héma-Québec cost the same thing.

Health committee  From a different perspective, everything is a matter or logistics. In order to create or preserve a unit of cord blood, bank operators have to work within a 48-hour time frame. Obviously, there are issues surrounding proximity to the processing site and airport accessibility. That is one reason why collection is concentrated primarily in major urban centres.

Health committee  I will give you a very simple answer. We are working on it. In February 2011, we will be submitting our application for international accreditation. I will spare you the logistical details associated with that, but there was a lot of work we had to do internally. Regardless, as I mentioned earlier, an inventory has to have a certain number of units before a bank can be considered at the international level.

Health committee  It is demand, plain and simple. The human tissue sector is quite different, and we are just as used to providing that service as Canadian Blood Services. We operate in an open market, meaning a competitive one, so we are competing against the Americans, among others. In that kind of environment, we have to set ourselves apart, especially when it comes to product quality, reputation and quality assurance regulations.

Health committee  In terms of cord blood, Dr. Wall, in Winnipeg, has done searches for some of her patients, but we have not found any compatible units so far. You always need to find the most compatible unit. People in British Columbia have also done searches as recently as the beginning of last week.

Health committee  It is a phenomenon in Canada, and especially Quebec, which was the leader. You can even see it in the volume. Historically, nearly 50% of transplants were done in Quebec. In Canada, it has to do with the culture of transplant specialists. Last year, 90 transplants were performed, and that figure was in line with the trend.

Health committee  To do that, of course, we need to forge partnerships outside Quebec, in order to increase the inventory's ethnic diversity. So we need to form partnerships in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto and probably other regions, such as the Northwest Territories. We have the ability to process, store and distribute cord blood.

Health committee  Excuse me, but I am not a doctor. It is Mr. Marco Décelles.

Health committee  This morning, we are going to try to answer two fundamental questions. But first of all, on behalf of Héma-Québec, I would like to thank Madam Chair and the committee for the opportunity to be here today. We are very grateful. So Héma-Québec will speak to two issues this morning.