Critical moments are those that are being experienced by the Provincial Hemotherapy Institute (IPHEM) and in the hospitals of San Juan due to the fact that in recent days blood donors have dropped and therefore they had to suspend some programmed operations.
As reported to the director of IPHEM to DAILY HUARPEAlfredo Laplagne, lately the number of accidents in San Juan has increased, which is why the demand for blood increased and donors did not increase. Faced with this situation, they began to suspend some operations that were scheduled.
“We are having about 100 units of blood per day, but we need 250, so if there is any scheduled surgery, it is unfortunately suspended if we are short of stock,” Laplagne explained.
The interventions that are stopped are those that are not emergency or urgent. However, there are people who spend many days and even a few months waiting for that turn and finally cannot complete the operation. “They are not surgeries that are going to change someone’s life immediately, they are not highly complex, neither for cancer patients or patients with cardiovascular problems, but they must be suspended because we need to have blood to cover accidents,” said the director of the entity.
To cover the demand for blood with peace of mind, in San Juan only about 17,000 people from San Juan are needed to donate blood per year, that is, about 47 per day and currently about 20 daily go to the body.
The last time they had almost 50 donors a day was in 2019, in 2020 they fell sharply due to the pandemic, but almost everything has returned to normal so they need to return to the levels of two years ago.
However, in 2020 the donation not only fell in the province, but in the world. “The only thing that allowed us to have a good time was that the accidents decreased and everything stopped, so the requirement was also lowered,” admitted Laplagne. It was thus that, with great efforts, they managed to get ahead, although there were critical moments in which they only had 30 or 40 units of blood.
For the people of San Juan to get an idea of the current situation regarding blood donation, the director of the IPHEM explained that a person who has had an accident and is in a serious state, needs about 10 or 20 units, that is, the blood of all donors that go to the entity at present.
Those wishing to be donors should request an appointment at https://darturnos.com/iphem. Something to keep in mind is that the volume that is extracted, 450 ml, is recovered in the day by drinking water. While, the red blood cells that are donated are recovered in the month. In a year, women can be donors four times and men five.
In order to donate, it is necessary to meet certain requirements such as being over 18 years old, attending with a light breakfast that does not contain dairy, waiting 12 months if a tattoo or piercing was done and weighing more than 50 kilos.
In the Argentine Republic there is a National Blood Law (No. 22,990) and it establishes that it is voluntary, free and altruistic, that is why the solidarity of the San Juan people is called upon to donate.
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