The number of blood donations in Russia is approaching to European figures

As a head of the applied facility for blood stocking I can see that without constant advertising the public interest to the problem of donor blood deficit is somehow waning. According to surveys 35% of respondents say that they have already been donors, 20% of Russian people declare that they are thinking about becoming blood donors. However the real number of blood donors is a bit more than 1%. And I believe that we still have to work out some solid mechanisms to make the people’s willingness to help by being donors constant.

I am deeply convinced that in near future such events of the promotion program as TV advertising, souvenirs, operation of the website “YADONOR” and telephone “hotline”, must be continued.

BLOOD SERVICE: Last year results show that we have an average of 14 blood donors per thousand people. Is it many or few? How does it look if compared with other countries?

OLGA GRISHINA: Indeed in the Russian Federation we have a number of blood donors per thousand people as the indicator of donors’ activity. Recently it has had only a slight tendency to growth and constitutes about 14 people per thousand.

Maybe I am expressing a paradoxical idea but I do think that this figure should not grow significantly. I’ll try to explain.

I think today there is no need in convincing anybody in the importance of repeated blood donation. There is a much lower degree of infections transmitted through blood among repeated donors, the blood of such donors is the safest because of regular tests and looking after their health. Moreover the modern system of plasma quarantine is only possible when the donor comes repeatedly to the blood transfusion station.

Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the Blood Service specialists and our partners promoting blood
donation, the tendency of increasing the number of repeated donors has been lately especially remarkable. In other words, if a donor used to donate blood or plasma just once, now the number of donors who donate blood more than once has been growing significantly.

According to the data from the Russian Scientific Research Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, in recent years there has been a steady tendency towards the growing number of donations – giving of blood or its components. From the beginning of our donor program implementation the number of blood donations has been growing by an average of 6-7% a year and approaches European figures – in 2010 in Russia there was registered an average of 25.6 blood donations per thousand people.

That means that with almost the same number of donors we have more stocked blood because of the growth of repeated donations from our donors. I think that it is much better than if it were vice-versa – many donors, giving blood only once in a lifetime.

BLOOD SERVICE: How do you assess the blood provision in medical facilities in Russia? Is it still a deficit situation? If there is a sharp need of blood in some remote areas and not in a big city, is there a real threat for the patient to die of lack of donor blood?

OLGA GRISHINA: Today the situation with blood provision for those in need is more often very difficult exactly in big cities, as there are large federal hospitals and people from all over Russia go there for treatment. Somewhere in remote areas the situation with blood components provision is not so problematic.
In a number of regions we even have some “surplus” of blood components. This extra blood is transferred to Moscow to overcome the deficit we still have here.

For truth’s sake I should say that the Moscow Blood Service only recently has started implementation of its own blood donor promotion program providing donors, giving blood in the Blood Service facilities under the Healthcare Department of Moscow, with the wide range of social support measures. Let’s wait a bit for the results of this program.

BLOOD SERVICE: Has the age level of regular donors changed as of today? Several years ago the most of regular donors were people “above 35”, and what is the situation now? How actively are young people involved in blood donation?

OLGA GRISHINA: That’s a good question. I take special delight in youth involvement in donor movement. It’s wonderful that in general our donor contingent has recently become significantly younger, that there are so many concerned people among students, the military, young business-people, different youth organizations. We cooperate actively with all these groups of people.

I would like to make an example of our recent campaign carried out with the participation of well-known people, athletes and public figures during the youth forum on Seliger. During 2 days our unit came there, they were able stock 262 dozes of blood.

When such a number of young and strong boys and girls, who I hope are the future of our country, are ready to sacrifice a part of themselves to save lives of other people, the energy of youth and enthusiasm pours into us – the Blood Service staff – too, and we want to make more good things and be inspired.

It’s wonderful that the leadership of our country understands the importance of work with young people and creates such much needed projects.

BLODD SERVICE: What would you like to say to donors and those who don’t give blood yet, but are thinking about it?