Donating blood during the summer, have you thought about it? With stocks still too low and demand higher, the French Blood Establishment is sounding the alarm. In the Pyrénées-Orientales, where reserves are particularly tight, medical staff are redoubling their efforts to ensure collection, despite seasonal challenges. Example during a collection in Port-Vendres.
With barely 12 days of blood bags in stock for Occitanie, compared to 15 days at the national level, the French Blood Establishment describes the summer as “a period of tight flow.”Since July 1, 2024, the Pyrénées Orientales are also doing with “a stock level on alert”, says Jéromine Devèze, in charge of promoting blood donation in the Roussillon Basin. To maintain “sufficient capacity”55 days of collections were carried out in the Catalan territory during the summer, in campsites, near the beaches or not far from the markets. And this is thanks to the efforts “medical staff who redoubled their efforts this summer, since the Île-de-France region was not able to collect as much as usual with the organization of the Olympic Games.”
In terms of blood stocks, group O negative, that of universal donors, remains the most requested during collections. In the event of a vital emergency, it allows for an immediate transfusion without the need to analyze the patient’s blood group. In the event of a road accident, a transfusion may require up to 50 doses. During the summer, group B negative is also in high demand.
Members of the Catalan association of voluntary blood donors in Port-Vendres.
“The record in Port-Vendres: 66 donors in 2018”
In Port-Vendres, on August 22, more than 50 people went to the blood drive organized in the cultural center by the Catalan association of volunteer blood donors of Port-Vendres. For Michel Bedez, treasurer of the association and blood donor “210 times”: “Donations have been down since 2018, when we had 66 donors, a record for Port-Vendres.”
Present on site this Thursday, the two doctors and the three nurses were sensitive to the tourists received “who receive reminders about the nearest collections, even when they are on holiday.” This is the case of Émilie and her son Mano, originally from Dordogne and on holiday in Banyuls-sur-Mer, who came “for Mano’s 18th birthday.” Accustomed to donations, Émilie wanted “showing his son that giving a small part of yourself to save someone’s life cost nothing.”
“It is not an effort to give an hour of your life, when afterwards you can save someone else’s”
Mano and Clarrys, who recently came of age, made their first donation this Thursday.
Morgane Clave, donor for 6 years in the P.-O.
Clarrys, a resident of Port-Vendres and a first-time donor, says she has “I waited until I was 18 to give blood, and I plan to do so again when there are other blood drives near my home.” Nathan Gades, a seasonal worker from Toulouse in Port-Vendres, also takes the first step: “When I saw a sign on the street, I just took my ID and came, since they are in short supply.”
From registration to the small snack offered, including the blood test, the donation only lasts an hour, and for Morgane Clave, 24 years old and a donor for 6 years, “It is not an effort to give an hour of your life, when afterwards you can save someone else’s.”
The EFS recalls that more than “60 bags of blood are needed daily by hospitals in the Pyrénées-Orientales” and that to meet this need, “the house of the gift of Perpignan”, at 55 avenue de la Salanque “remains open all year round.”
