2007-05-29
blood donations
Hi.
Recently, on planet.debian.org, there were quite a few posts relating to blood donations. I must say that I really only live thanks to people donating blood. As many might know, I had a freaking motorcycle accident about 9 years ago. Well, apart from loosing my right leg in the weeks following the accident (irreparable damages to tissues led to amputation), I also lost a lot of blood after the accident. In the six hours following the accident, I got no less than 65 blood infusions (approximately 24-30 litres or 6-8 US gallons). As you can imagine, this is about 3-4 times as much blood as my body normally carries around.
At least I can say that I didn’t receive blood without giving some before, though certainly I wasn’t able to give that much blood (I donated about 10 times, approx. 0.45 litres each time). However, due to the medication I now need, I can’t donate blood anymore. Anyhow, I strongly suggest to anyone who is capable of donating blood to do so.
And regarding Thijs comment about the frequency of donation and payment: This is highly depending on the area you live in and the organisation who manages the donations. For example, while I donated blood in Dortmund, Germany, I had two options to donate blood: German Red Cross, who would accept a donation every 6 weeks, with free sandwiches, drinks and chocolate but without payment and the city-owned hospital’s blood bank, which allowed a donation every 3 month, with free drinks and a 50DEM (approx. 25EUR/30USD) payment. This sounds as if the city-owned blood bank could attract homeless and junkies who were in for the money, but from my experience, the blood bank did far stricter pre-donation tests (I can’t tell what they did after donation for either organisation) than the red cross. And knowing how much money can be earned with the blood donated, I certainly think that payment is fair, though not strictly necessary. And the blood bank people did a much better job when applying the needle than the red cross people did, which might be because they were used to taking blood from people with bad veins (mostly patients donating blood for themselves for use in a later, planned surgery). But to be fair: I know from other people who had very good experiences with the red cross staff in this respect.
Once again: Please donate blood if you can. If you are uncomfortable with the choice you made on your first donation, check out other options for donations. For example, if you almost collapsed when donating blood, try out the plasma donation if it is offered. They usually take the plasma, but give back an equal volume of a substitution, so your circulation isn’t disturbed as much as by taking approx. 0.5 litres from it within an hour. If you feel that the person who applied the needle did a bad job, ask for someone else next time or try a different organisation altogether.
cu,
Sven
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Feth said,
May 29, 2007 at 15:47 UTC (+0000)
I used to donate blood from my 18th birthday on… until I learnt I had received blood at birth.
In France it is forbidden to donate blood not only if you take a medication, but also if you have been sick recently, travelled in southern countries or if you have been a blood receiver, be it 30 years ago or not.
More questionnably (warning, there is a medical troll in here), it will be quite difficult to donate blood if you are a male homosexual.
sven said,
May 29, 2007 at 17:17 UTC (+0000)
As for homosexuals (especially male), I know that at least one blood bank I know does take blood from them, but does a bit more extensive pre-tests (same is true for various other “higher risk” people, such as those who received blood in the past).
All refuse donations by people who were sick lately (where what lately means varies depending on the illness) and most deny donations by people who regularly take medicine. All refuse donations if you take certain medicine (like anti-depressants or certain pain treatments).
The exact rules are partly dictated by the applicable law (which is different from country to country) and are otherwise derived from experiences they made (certain groups have a higher risk of AIDS for example) or from rules their respective blood recieving organisation set up. Blood is rarely “marketed” directly by the organisation receiving your donation, at least in Germany. The Red Cross seems to be the big exception here until you carefully look at the organisational structure, which uses a bunch of closely related and similarly branded companies (charitables though).
Feth said,
May 29, 2007 at 18:17 UTC (+0000)
France has a national federation (EFS, former CNTS) of regional blood institutes (CRTS), only organization allowed.
Since we had a major scandal in 1985, I guess we have some of the most restrictive measures : I suspect many donation are silently discarded depending on what you answered on the questionnaire or to the physician.
I try and summarize http://etss.u-strasbg.fr/images/Questionnaire2006.pdf below (sorry I don’t have a blog so I pollute others’ with my long comments) :
-”do you feel like you need a viral test ?”
-”do you have HIV or [list]?”
-”have you ever received blood, organs, been operated on, did you take Soriatane® ?”
-allergies, malaria
-”do you have relatives with a disease [from a list] ?”
-”did you travel out of Europe last three months ?”
-”have you ever been out of Europe for more than three months ?”
-”stay for more than one year in great Britain between 1980 and 1996 ?”
-”during the last four months : did you take medicines, been operated on, been vaccinated, have some very common diseases [from a list], been pierced, in contact with human blood (even by projection !) ”
-many others
-”did you read it all ?”
-”did you ever take drugs, ever have sexual relations between males, were you ever paid for sex [etc] ?”
Many questions are asked several times, and we’re even told that we can change our mind after the donation -the whole process keeping the donor anonymous to the receiver.
Fred said,
May 29, 2007 at 21:49 UTC (+0000)
German blood banks also refuse blood from anyone who has lived in the UK
for more than 6 months between 1980 and 1996 (even if they were vegitarian), in the US blood banks refuse donations from anyone who has lived in europe during that time…
nicola johnson said,
February 28, 2011 at 08:35 UTC (+0000)
France !!!
Ive been living in france for nearly ten years and have not been able to give blood because i lived in england when the mad cow disease was around !!!
In england i could give blood, and it makes me really angry that for ten years i havent been able to give. I cant afford to go back to england to do it, but its very important for me to donate my blood.