Laurie Blackstock’s bio
Laurie Blackstock is an intercultural facilitator and learning designer in the Ottawa area. She gained firsthand knowledge of the deceased organ and tissue donor process when her husband, Stephen Belliveau, experienced neurological death in January 2017.
Laurie joins us today as a Patient-Family-Donor (PFD) Partner with the Normothermic Regional Perfusion (NRP) ethics pilot study led by CDTRP Innovation Grant awardee Charles Weijer. She is also the CDTRP Patient Co-Lead for Theme 1: Improve a Culture of Donation; a member of the Organ Donation and Transplantation Cooperative (ODTC) Deceased Donation Working Group; and a member of the Ottawa Gift of Life advocacy and education group.
In 2018, Laurie told her husband’s story as a witness on behalf of the Kidney Foundation of Canada to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. Since then, she has been a guest speaker for numerous ODT events.