On average, around 4,000 documents are issued daily in Poland per year. blood units. Even during the pandemic and a significant reduction in the services provided in hospitals, the constant demand in hospitals was at the level of approx. 2.5 thousand. units. This is the result of the report on the functioning of blood donation and blood therapy in the period 2019-2021, which was presented at the Wednesday (January 11) meeting of the Parliamentary Health Committee.
Despite the pandemic, the need for blood was high
Published Jan. 11, 2023 11:28
– The demand for blood and the activity of blood donors are disproportionately distributed throughout the year. The limitation in blood management is that it has an expiration date. It cannot be downloaded. The amount of blood drawn must correspond to the demand. It is predictable only to some extent. During the holiday season, the amount of blood in the banks is significantly reduced, said Małgorzata Lorek, director of the National Blood Centre.
As she added, during the pandemic, the constant demand for blood in hospitals remained at around 2.5 thousand. doses per day. The average number of doses dispensed per day is 4,000. The number of blood donors remains stable at around 600,000. The number of donations is approximately 1.2-1.3 million per year.
According to Deputy Minister of Health Waldemar Kraska, work is underway on solutions that will improve the operation of the blood management system in Poland.
– The draft law on blood donation and blood therapy is already on the list of works of the Council of Ministers. We are also in the process of amending the act on public blood service. Some of the records that were introduced during the epidemic have worked. These are, for example, rights for blood donors, such as exemption from work tasks on the day of collection, as well as the possibility of qualifying people to donate blood by nurses. We want to maintain these two solutions also after the state of epidemic threat is lifted, announced the Deputy Minister of Health.
A lot of emotions during the meeting of the Parliamentary Health Committee were aroused by the speech of MP Jerzy Hardie-Douglas from the Civic Coalition, who asked about the possibility of commercializing blood donation.
- There has been a discussion for several years about going back to allowing people who want to sell blood to be able to do so. There are no ethical or health obstacles, and it would certainly increase blood supply, which is sometimes lacking - stressed Jerzy Hardie-Douglas.
Waldemar Kraska replied that such an option is not being considered, because honorary blood donation functions perfectly in our country, and donors donate blood for purely human reasons.
