A large glass door, a sign in front of the entrance in one of the busiest streets of Toulouse, right in the city center: hard to miss the Blood Donation House here. At the reception, Thierry receives about 90 people a day. “People stop, come and ask us if they can’t give that day, they make an appointment, he explains. We really take spontaneous donors with pleasure.”
>> The French Blood Establishment warns of dangerously low stocks and launches an appeal for donations
Behind him, the waiting room is rather full. There are a lot of young people there, like Quentin.
“When I was a little boy, my father had a road accident and he needed a lot of blood. For me, giving can save lives, save people like my father.”
Quentin, donor
to franceinfo
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“And even for me, if I ever have an accident one day, I will be very happy to have blood”, Quentin adds.
Except that’s not enough. At the moment, the stock level is historically low. 100,000 bags of blood are needed to manage all the needs of the sick but there are only 70,000 at the moment, which is equivalent to 11 days of stocks.
And it’s even worse in Occitania, with only 8 days of stocks available. “What worries us particularly is that this situation has been going on for several months now, alerts Dr. Marie-Christine Guehl, head of sampling for the Garonne basin at the French Blood Establishment. We can’t get back up despite several calls to the population to come and donate their blood. It is really necessary that all people who are of giving age ask themselves the question. Blood products, nothing can replace them.”
10,000 donations are needed per day in France. If you want to donate your blood and know the places of collection, you will find all the information on the “Blood Donation” app, or by going to the website dondesang.efs.sante.fr or by calling the toll-free number 0800.744.100.
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