Health
World Blood Donor Day: The Red Cross still needs your pockets! It takes less than thirty minutes and it can be crucial for the life of others and maybe yours one day …
This international day is organized by the World Health Organization (WHO). It is dedicated to the promotion and awareness of blood donation and labile blood product for the health of all.
1. The specific situation of the pandemic
At the beginning of last May, the Belgian Red Cross issued a warning message: the blood stocks are “in critical condition” … In this period of health crisis, the latter urged donors not to postpone their donation until a “return to normal”. There were actually 2,500 pockets missing. “If stocks looked good at the end of the Easter holidays, the situation very quickly deteriorated”, explains the Belgian Red Cross.
“Teleworking has taken an important place in our lives. This may have disrupted the habits of some who overlook their workplace or a place close to it ”, reports the Belgian Red Cross. While noting the resumption of a whole series of interventions and operations which will again require major transfusions that are much needed …
Donors can make an appointment at one of the 16 permanent collection centers via the website www.DonneurDeSang.be. Appointment scheduling is mandatory at the collection centers. As for the village collections, which generally have more facilities for respecting safety distances, they are mostly open access.
2. The prospect of summer, vacations and departures
The date chosen to celebrate this World Blood Donor Day is perhaps not entirely trivial, in any case it precedes the great summer transhumance and the decrease in the availability of potential donors. People are going to leave and put their regular donations on hold.
It is therefore of great importance to constitute reserves of pocket stocks which run out more quickly during these periods. And if you do not or do not regularly, in general we can go up to four donations in a calendar year, this is a very good period to help build up and maintain stocks available for hospitals in particular.
3. Nothing replaces blood
As the Belgian Red Cross explains very simply on its site, despite the incredible advances in medical science and research, at present “ no drug can replace human blood or its components. It is therefore an irreplaceable product. However, every day, hundreds of sick and injured people need a transfusion to survive and heal ”. A simple observation and a call for permanent donations!
4. One donation = three people cared for
Keep in mind that donating blood will actually treat three people in total. Your blood is divided into three blood products when it is taken from your body: red blood cells, platelets, plasma.
As needed, “ the different constituents of the blood are separated, processed and prepared to be transported to hospitals“. Just your red blood cells will help and save accident victims, people who have had surgery, women who have given birth, people who are struggling with cancer, people with anemia, victims genetic diseases that require transfusion until the end of their life.
5. What if you or a loved one needed it someday?
It is perhaps the argument which plays the most on the sensitive chord and on a certain “guilt” but it is also intended to be very realistic. Each year in Belgium, nearly 500,000 pockets are needed to meet the many needs. And, according to the Belgian Red Cross, around one in seven people who donate blood will need it one day in their life.
So, thinking of the other is first of all thinking of yourself… In short, think about it!
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