Provoke Podcast: Patrice Lavoie

0:01Patrice Lavoie: The Provoke podcast brought to you by Provoke Media and produced by the international broadcast specialist marketers.

0:13Hello and welcome to the Provoke Media podcast. I am Diana Marzalek. I'm with Provoke Media. And we have today speaking from, I believe, Quebec City, Patrice Lavoie. Pardon my French, Patrice. Patrice is the Director of Public Affairs and Communications for EMA Quebec. EMA Quebec, you can tell me how to say it. Yes, that's perfect, actually. That's the extent of my French. You're really good. Thank you. Are you proud of me? Yes, I am. Thank you. Thank you. So, but why don't we start a little bit with you, Patrice, telling us a little bit about your organization and what you do. I'm excited to have this conversation because, as I mentioned, it's a little bit out of the norm of the realm of what we do and obviously do very important work.

1:04So let's start with what you do and we can go from there. Thank you. Well, first, thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be talking with you this morning. And sorry in advance for my really thick French accent. I love it. You love it? Oh, thank you. You're reassuring me. Yeah, I've been in the media and public relations world for close to 25 years now. And all of my profile, all of my career has been done pretty much in crown corporations. I did six years in Loto-Québec, which is a crown corporation that manages the gaming industry for the province of Quebec, all of Quebec. I was for four years also at Hydro-Québec, which is the crown corporation that manages electricity for the whole province.

2:02And for the past four years now, almost four years, I'm at Hema-Québec. Emma Quebec is actually the crown corporation that manages the blood bank for all of Quebec hospital, as well as we manage the steam cell registry, mother milk, human tissue, and also plasma and plaquettes. And the whole blood banks, our role is basically to make sure that every hospital in the province, when a patient needs blood or any type of human product, they will have access to it. So it's a pretty important organization. And we keep saying that in my team, I have a team of eight people here in the public coalition teams.

3:02And we like to think that we help saving life each day with what we do. And surely you do, absolutely. I want to backtrack for a minute. You're referring to crown corporations. Those are government organizations? For your American friends, how do you define that? Oh, I thought that that was actually the term that everyone uses. A crown corporation, yes, is basically an organization linked to the government. So it's government-owned, yes. So we don't have a crown anymore here. Yeah, we actually don't either. Well, from back in the days, but we're not really big on the whole royalty thing. I should change my term.

3:50Maybe we will have a crown sooner based on life as we know it. But at the moment. Oh, don't get me started. I know. Don't get me started on that. That's a whole other conversation. We've done that too. But right now, at the moment, we don't have a crown. And that's okay. And something that certainly plays into the communications, and we'll talk more about your actual job and your challenges, is you said to me that, and this was news to me, that being a Quebec organization, you speak in, I think of Canada as bilingual, correct? But you were saying that your remit is in French, right? But yet you have the challenge of having to meet English speakers versus what we think of in our wrong-headed English-centric world.

4:36Yeah, Canada is mostly English, but in Quebec, it's a French province. So we are always a little bit different from the rest of Canada. We do have a really large English community in Montreal, near Montreal and in Sherbrooke and in other English people in a few areas in the province. But mostly as a, I'm not going to say Crown Corporation, but as a Quebec organization, we do have to speak French. But of course, we are a bit different because it's actually related to health. So if a customer or a donor want to address us in English because they only speak English, we will speak English. Most of our employees are able to speak both, especially in the Montreal area.

5:36Yeah, but we have some rules that we have to make sure that French is predominant in our communications, for sure. So what is interesting, I find, is that your job really, as I understand it, is focused on public participation, correct? If you're not selling a product, everybody knows if you need blood, you need blood, right? You said it, and it's public participation. participation, I'm sorry, it's public participation, but all of this, it's people giving us time, giving us their blood, like choosing to spend 30 minutes, one hour, go to one of our blood drive or one of our blood donating center and actually spend time there.

6:29So we always have to attract the

6:36people's deep feeling of wanting to give back to the society. So yes, we're not selling everything. We're selling actually can you help us saving lives? You're healthy. Some people are not healthy and are desperate needs of different laws or different products. So can you help us? So all of our communications or marketing or advertising is based around that message. Yeah. That's really different. That's, that's something that I've never done before in PR. That's for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's, first of all, are you just, are you the sole organization that deals in Quebec? Yeah. Okay. So you must need, I mean, I don't even know how you quantify it.

7:25if you do it by gallons or how much blood you must need to have. It's really easy. We need a thousand donations each day just to make sure that we respond to the demand. Amazing. Amazing. So this is your first sort of position, as you said, with this sort of focus. And you do more than just blood, right? So you also deal with other kinds of donations. what is either surprised you or the biggest challenge i mean blood banks we've all heard from growing up there's always for for decades right and blood banks give blood to go but is there still a fear and even now with um you know there's so much talk and distrust of science and medicine and this and that i mean how hard is it to get people to do something that is still so sort of integrated into the fabric of what we learn to do, just growing up and going to doctors and going to school and all those things, and so necessary?

8:31Is it still a challenge? Yeah, it's a really interesting question. I would start by saying that first, even before joining the organization, and when all of my team, we talk to people or families in France, people don't know the extent of what HEMA Quebec do on a daily basis. We see sometimes a blood drive at the shopping center, and we believe that it's kind of a, okay, it's the organization that organizes blood drive for the province, but the extent of what we do in terms of research, making sure that every process is bulletproof, because that's actually, we are, that's what we do. We need to make sure that the donor will be 100 % safe.

9:20The product that we will provide to the hospital will be 100 % safe. And at the end of the day, we all do it for a patient that needs to receive a product, a blood transfusion that's going to be 100 % safe. So we are an organization of 2 ,000 employees. and the extent of expertise. People have PhD, master degree. We have, I think, a team of 40 researchers to make sure that we always are up to date in our procedure. We make sure that everything is approved by Health Canada. Of course, Health Canada is the regulator that makes sure that they approve our criteria who can donate, who cannot donate anymore.

10:11We make sure to check what's going on in the world with different types of diseases and everything. I would say that there are still some people who can be afraid from, let's say, people are really afraid of needles. When we do survey, that's the main thing that people who don't donate tell us. Like, oh, I would donate, but I'm afraid of needle. I'm afraid I'm going to feel bad afterwards. But aside from that, I would say that we have, as an organization, have the trust of the population. When we do survey, do you trust Emma Quebec to be an organization that is really safe and have really secure protocols?

11:00And people mostly answer yes. So, yeah. So you feel past, are we past the, not past, I mean, you're going to have it somewhat with everything, but I think about when people were scared of getting transfusions that were tarnished. I don't know what the proper word is. Maybe tarnished is not a correct word. Well, 28 years ago, we had a really big scandal with blood transfusion. It started in Europe and then all over Canada and Quebec was also part of it. Some people got, unfortunately, got HIV because of blood transfusion. And Emma Quebec was created as a result of that crisis, of that scandal. So for 28 years, it's in our DNA.

11:50That's why we've been created. So we double, triple everything we do. We check everything just to make sure that this situation will never, ever happen again. And I believe that we do a good job. And that's another thing. You're telling me about in PR when I joined that organization. I felt like we were really risk averse, even going publicly to talk about what we do, because I felt like after being created after a scandal, it makes the organization really more turn on themselves. We're not going to necessarily go into the media to explain this and this. And when I joined, I was the one like sometimes calling to upper management and say, hey, you know what?

12:44Sometimes we need to talk more about what we do, what we do very well. We need to explain to the public that, yes, we organize blood drive, but Emma Quebec is so much more. We have stem cells, mother milk, human tissue. and we actually over the past four years of course I'm tracking everything that is being said in the media and we have a higher profile in the media a more positive profile just because we decided as an organization to explain more who we are, what we do and this is actually a good improvement And yeah, that's something that I'm not going to say that it's only because I joined the organization.

13:34Of course, it's only because you joined the organization. No, I have a really strong team and I feel like the organization was ready for it. But we are a lot more open than we used to be. And also in terms of PR, before we had one spokesperson who was actually talking on behalf of the whole organization. So each time we had to discuss something really technical, medical, the spokesperson who was not a doctor or an expert had to actually get a brief and explain it in front of the media. But for the past four years now, we have several spokespersons we put in front of the media or doctors or specialists or experts, even our staff in our blood drives and donation centers.

14:22Because people want to see who M.A. Quebec is. We want to humanize, I don't know if it's the right word, but show a more human side of the organization. So we do coach people who have basically never done an interview in their life, but they have good communicator. They can summarize well what they do. We coach them and then we follow them to TV station, radio station. We don't let them go by themselves. but it also gave a better view, I believe, of who we are as an organization and who are the humans actually making it happen every day. Right. And it sounds like, so you're an organization, which I didn't realize, was sort of born out of this crisis that Blood Domination had, but it still took a while for you to get the word out.

15:25Yeah? I mean, to build that stature or that trust? Well, I wasn't there. I'm only here for four years, so I cannot speak for the past 20, 25 years. But what I heard and what I could feel by talking to my colleagues who were there before is really an organization who worked more over the years on making sure, double, triple sure, that nothing can happen, that all of our protocols are safe. Like every blood transfusion that we, not blood transfusion, but every blood bag, I don't know what's the word, I'm sorry, that we receive are being tested once, twice, three times before being sent to the hospital.

16:21And we worked over the years more on making sure that we are a safe and secure organization instead of going public necessarily with explaining like we are. Of course, we did it. Like I'm not saying that we didn't do it. We did it. But we can see over the past few years that we are now at the point that we know that we are doing things. We've been doing things so greatly over the past years. And now it's time to actually explain it and show a bit more we are. So you got that down. But if someone's afraid of needles still, how do you close that gap between, you know, you still need blood donations, right?

17:04So people say I would, but I'm scared I would. what sort of communication? I mean, that's a big challenge to actually get people in. So rallying them to action. So after you explain the safety, how do you get them there? It's actually probably the hardest thing because if you're afraid of something, sometimes it's not something that you can. It's a phobia. It's a fear. So even if I'm telling you it doesn't hurt that much, it's going to be quick. and our staff knows what they're doing and they're going to be really caring, they're going to explain you the whole process, of course, you can still be scared.

17:46So we try to, we actually have an advertising campaign about tattoos. And it's basically, if you have tattoos, you're not supposed to be scared of needles. So that's the way we use kind of humor to show that it doesn't hurt. But yeah, there's only so much we can do, but we still need to get the word out there because only 3 % of adult Quebecers give bloods. And it's nowhere near to be enough. So we have to make sure that the word gets out there. And that 3%, is that again, a host of reasons people just don't think about it or have the perceptions? perceptions that they can't because they do this or whatever it is?

18:36Well, I think it's a mix of a lot of things, but mostly people, I believe it's my own opinion. I think people don't necessarily think about it or take the time to put that like pencil, pencil it in their agenda, in their schedule and say, you know what, I'm going to go give blood. Also, we have donation centers in 13 cities. So if you want to give plasma or plakets, you have to actually drive to get there. Sometimes it can be 30 minutes, 45 minutes away like me. When I want to give, I give plasma and plakets. And I have to drive close to an hour to give. So I need to actually consider it in my schedule on weekends to make sure that to give.

19:27And sometimes even myself, I need to cancel my appointment because some things came up. But then I make sure to call or go on the website and take another appointment. So that's what we want to tell people. We know that it takes time, but also it's such a great gesture. It's such a noble cause. So please help us save lives because every donation, you can at least save three lives with what you give. So we try to using social media, traditional media advertising. And with social media, actually, it's quite easier because now we are on TikTok for a younger crowd, on Instagram, on Facebook, on LinkedIn and a few other platforms.

20:18So we try to reach the population the more that we can. And when they come once, it's not just you need to come back because we always, each day we need a thousand donations. So it's also important to us to say if you gave today, thank you. But can you come back? When we were going to come back in your city and organize a blood drive, do you want to take an appointment? Yes. And then we make sure that you have your appointment. And then we remind you. You have an appointment. Yeah. I read that you created a VR experience to help people understand what donating is actually like. Is that correct?

21:00Oh, yeah. Thank you for talking about that. Yes, it's actually one of my team and I, we created actually three experiences. The first one was to demonstrate how a blood donation happens, just to make sure that if people are scared or don't know the process, They could live it through VR first. That was more of a pilot, I would say. And then the next one was the same thing, but shorter and about plasma. And then the last one was, yeah, I'm pretty proud of this one. It's one of Patrice, another Patrice in my team who had that idea with the firm that we were working with. And it's basically an escape the room and you are in an environment with the VR headset and you actually have to match and do some tasks to discover what EMA Quebec, each areas of EMA Quebec, what we do with mother milk, human tissues, stem cells, plasma and blood transfusion, I believe.

22:12And then we have five stations. You have to succeed. And then you received a témoignage, a speech from someone who received a transfusion, like thanking you for actually helping them stay alive. And yeah, you received a good ease after. And people, we use that in several events and to make sure like shopping centers and like big events, sports events. We were there with a stand just to make sure that we can reach out to more people. And people actually appreciated that. You wouldn't expect like, oh my God, it's an Emma Quebec stand. Okay, I can try VR. Like why? What's the deal? Like a game, a plant donation game.

23:04Yeah. People were actually really curious and it worked well. So that was a good, I believe it was a good idea from all parts. That's great. I'm proud of this. As you should be, you work in one of those fields or I don't know if you call it that, an organization that like a lot of people don't know how important these things are until you need it, right? Exactly. Until you need it. So that's keeping it front and center. And I would say that what works well to inspire people to donate, yes, we can say it's important. It saves lives. Yes, we need a thousand donations each day. You can explain that the process is safe and secure from beginning to end.

23:53But it's really when they hear someone say, because of you, my life, I can live, I can spend time with my family. thank you like we do when you reach 100 donation we organize each year kind of an event with our major donors and we always have someone who comes on stage explain their story and you know what I've been to several of these events and I'm still teary eyed afterwards because it makes you see like in flesh and blood why you're doing it each day like having someone sometimes they're young sometimes they're a little bit older but they all have different stories but pretty much everyone they're here because they receive because of their the donors that decided to to give so it's really these inspiring stories are what actually gets people to to donate for sure okay so that's really yeah the crux of it right is you can offer games and all the other good things but it's really hearing somebody about it.

25:03One more question before I let you go is that, is it correct that your organization is expanding possibly into other, I don't know what to call it, not products, but organ donation and services, or is this correct that you're, what do you call, first of all, what do you call that? That's not offensive. No, no, it's, well, not, we manage human tissues, And there has been a government project to actually give organs to HEMA Quebec, organ donation management to HEMA Quebec, which is now managed by a smaller organization in Quebec. But it didn't go through. So, yeah. So right now we are doing what you do best.

25:58Yes. But we also have my upper management always say that we look for opportunities to expand what we do, of course. But right now, that's what we do. And that's what we do really, really well. good well I appreciate what you do and one last question I mean I imagine like you've got to keep patient and keep at it because there are so many people out there and the need is so great and that like you said what did you say three percent of people actually donate blood yes only three percent so how do you see that changing can it change we have to I mean in three percent could you believe It's not even 10%.

26:42It's nothing. And of course, we keep spreading the words, but some of our donors get older and they cannot give anymore because they take certain medicines or they get unhealthy. So we have to make sure that every people decide to donate. The younger crowd that gets 18 years old, when they turn 18 years old, we want them to know that they have to donate as well. But it's the whole population for sure. And we even have some blood drives in middle school just to make sure that the kids are actually aware. And of course, they don't give blood. It's their parents who come and give blood. But we want to inspire people to become a donor when they are quite young.

27:42And we go to CEGEP, to university. We organize blood drive. We have more than 1 ,000 volunteers also go to events organized and just to make sure that they talk about Emma Quebec and how you can give. and if there's something that like people from Quebec if they hear that podcast I want them to know that they need to give because it's really important every interview we do we finish with that specific invitation I can understand that and good for you so I appreciate this work and the challenge you have and it's just so important and I appreciate you taking the time to speak with us about it. Well, thank you for having me.

28:30It's been lovely. And thank you for your really pertinent questions. It's actually really rare that I talk about myself as a PR from that organization. I mostly talk about the organization as a whole, but that was a really interesting take on it. It's really different for me. So I'm really glad for the invitation. Good. You found the right place to do it. thank you okay take care and good luck thank you

29:02Patrice Lavoie: you've been listening to the provoke podcast brought to you by provoke media and produced by the international broadcast specialist marketers