Blood donations have fallen to catastrophic levels. Experts say young people need to step up.
Blood donations have fallen to catastrophic levels. Experts say young people need to step up.
Changes to the requirements for donating blood coupled with the pandemic have led to a drop-off in the number of teens and young adults donating blood.
I gave blood routinely for years and years. Hours of my time on public transit and in the chair. Then, one time, I was sick and canceled because that is expected (nobody wants sick blood). They called me twice daily while I was sick to reschedule. Each time I said I would reschedule when I was healthy, but they didn't stop calling. It made me think of them as some telemarketing predators that are profiteering on my good will. True or not that feeling made me not go back.
Why? Those "donation" companies take my free blood and sell it to hospitals for like 500 a bag and give me a t-shirt. I give when I can but don't go out of my way unless the prize is good. If they want more donations give better prizes.
Interesting
Personally I’m a bit tangential to this, if I’m donating I’d expect the blood to go to places that need it without cost to them.
If they’re selling it, I want a fair shake too but I’d be more willing to donate to someone who would be giving it to the hospitals in need free of charge.
I’m sure there are costs associated but non-profits exist, no? Maybe there’s something I’m unaware of with how these work
Donations have to cover the costs of day operations. They need to be pay their employees, purchase supplies, money towards the buildings and/or vehicles they use, etc. I don't know how much hospitals are paying for each donation unit, so I can't speak on that. Blood donation centers might have a hard time operating on just monetary donations they receive. Paying donars for each donation would open the door to shady and ineligible people wanting some quick cash. There are places that pay for plasma, but I don't have experience with them, so I've never looked into how they operate.
My personal experience. I had to pause donating platelets recently due to a medical issue, but I have donated regularly for the last few years. I've never done it for t-shirts or gifts. I donated because platelets help people. The Red Cross has a feature that will usually tell where your donation went after itvhas been processed. I would always have good day when mine was shipped to a children's hospital. I hope I can start donating again soon.
As with all jobs: if you pay (enough), people will come.
How exactly do you think they keeps the lights on in those “donation companies?”
Not necessarily upset with the donation company. But the hospital takes that 500 bag and sells it to patients for thousands and now they also limit how much blood is given per surgery instead of the amount the surgeons ask for so in an complications they have to wait for approval for more blood or simply don't have it and the patient dies because the hospital corporations wanted to save a buck. There are articles about this all over the net.
In my county if I donate once a year I can get as much free blood as I need from the hospitals in the county should I ever need it. That encourages people in our area to donate often.
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How is the Red Cross responsible for any of that?
It's hilarious, and telling, that they think the people to lash out against are people needing blood transfusions.
Aka
Cancer, anemia, and trauma patients. Pregnant mothers with complications. Premature infants.
All because "People needing blood must be boomers, so just die."
A trash opinion, from a trash human, proud of its spiteful ignorance, scared of a prick of pain and a minor inconvenience.
Restore sanity to the McDonald's dollar menu, stop my neighbor's dog from barking after 8pm, add more Arcane weapons to Elden Ring DLC, and bring spicy popcorn back to my 7-11, and then Red Cross, we might volunteer to be your blood bags.
It's sad that you're so cynical that you can't stand the idea of helping another human simply because all people deserve life.
Pay me, experts
There's a potential for abuse with paying for donations (not saying it should never be done):
- risk of unsafe blood supplies if people lie about their health history in order to be able to sell their blood
- ethical concerns around exploiting financially vulnerable people, and turning a life-saving act into another commercial transaction
- In areas where those vulnerable people aren't protected by the legal system, there's also the potential of OTHER people "harvesting" and selling the blood
Voluntary and altruistic donations are best, and ideally those values are maintained all the way through the donation process. Hopefully technology continues to improve so that we can support those donations with synthesized alternatives
I believe we've had some discussion around this in Canada recently, specifically with donations for plasma. I'm not caught up on it to comment further about it
Plasma centers pay about 40 dollars per visit, twice a week. Plasma cannot be donated for 8 weeks after whole blood donation.
Offering up to $40 per donation offers no advantage to entice a plasma donor to switch to whole blood, so should not increase the risk to the blood supply.
Suppose the Red Cross and CSL plasma both used the same payment system for donors. Both would then have access to donor records, and would be able to refuse donations from people who have donated too recently. Donating blood would cost the donor 8 weeks worth of plasma payments: $640.
CSL's payment department would only be involved if donors want to be paid. Unpaid donors could be given a receipt for their $40 tax deductible charitable donation.
I think we found out reason why.
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Socialize your blood, privatize profits.
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How to worsen the blood shortage with just two sentences.
There is a lot of good discussion here, but I'd like to toss in something else. Look around at the society we live in. Corporations don't care about health and well-being. Insurance companies don't care about health and well-being. Political leaders don't care about health and well-being. Pundits and think tanks don't care about health and well-being.
Caring, volunteering, and donation all require the right frame of mind. Between the stress of daily survival and the messages we get from the people with the most power and the loudest voices, it surprises me that anyone is still donating.
Wonder if there is any work done on synthetic blood, or if that's the one thing man can not create.
DARPA in particular has invested in several projects to try to develop a synthetic blood alternative. There's no chance anytime soon of reproducing all of the functionality of real blood. The research is mostly targeting something that could be transfused in an emergency that could keep someone alive while they're transported to a care facility (maintain pressure and distribute some oxygen without inducing toxicity), especially something that would be field-deployable with a longer shelf life, preferably without refrigeration.
They're on the way. I saw something last year where they're working on it. I think in its current state it can deliver oxygen but it's not helping clotting or stabilizing blood pressure yet.
After they work those parts out, the next step will be getting approved which will take time.
It's a good question. I'm not a biological engineer so I'm not sure what's stopping us from cloning blood. I feel like that's where the sweet spot would be for a while.
There's been "something on the way" for fifty years.
I donate when I can. I hope I get to donate at least 40 times, so I can get that extra pension from the government if I manage to live that long.
They fucked up and left me with a month of bruising, so no.
That's always a risk. I give blood about 6 times a year and that's only happened to me once over the last 3 years.
First of all no.
Second of all fucking vampires
In reality I have a massive issue with needles that makes me super uncomfortable. Won't go into details but I need a moment to recover when I get any work done around them . Legitimately less stress to not tell my partner something only for it to become a "surprise"
No chance! I’m keeping my blood in my freezer with... my money!!!