DRK warning Too few blood donations in Germany

Threatening bottlenecks in the blood?

13/06/2012

June 14 is World Blood Donor Day. The German Red Cross (DRC) has criticized the lack of willingness of Germans to donate blood on this occasion. In just a few years, bottlenecks in the care of sick and injured people with blood products are at risk in the worst case, according to the latest communication from the German Red Cross.

Institutions like the German Red Cross use the World Blood Donor Day as an opportunity to draw attention to how necessary voluntary and unpaid blood donation is. More than 3.8 million people decide to donate blood annually in Germany, but this is only enough to meet the acute need, according to the spokesman for the DRG blood transfusion services, Friedrich-Ernst Düppe, to the news agency „dpa“. In the future, however, additional reserves would have to be built up, as in the opinion of the experts, significantly more people in the future will need a blood reserve.

Too few young blood donors
In the run-up to the World Blood Donor Day on June 14, the German Red Cross has criticized the Germans for their lack of blood donation. Especially younger people were rarely willing to donate blood. The average age of the blood donors is currently at DRK already at 44 years, despite intensive efforts of the aid organization, through regular visits to vocational schools and high schools as well as through increased educational work, even young people to win a blood donation. According to the DRK, ignorance and the fear of injections are often the reason for rejecting a blood donation. Also, according to the DRK, some potential blood donors are afraid of infection. There „However, according to the spokesman of the DRC blood donation service, this fear is unfounded.

Elderly people often only limitedly suitable for blood donation
The lack of willingness of young people to donate blood is also a problem, according to the DRC, because in the coming years, more and more native donors retire due to age. Although the age limit for DRC regular blood donors has been revised upwards several times and is currently 71 years, in general older people are often unsuitable as blood donors. „Many older people swallow regular pills and thus retire as blood donors“, explained Friedrich-Ernst Düppe. Raising the age limit therefore does not provide a real solution to the problem. Rather, the young people are encouraged to go to the blood donation more often. From the age of 18, healthy people in Germany can donate blood.

Consequences of demographic change for blood donations
According to the spokesman of the German Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service, demographic change in Germany has a massive impact on the number of blood donations and the required blood supplies. On the one hand, the age-related withdrawal of the parent donors leads to a significant drop in blood donations, as they were willing to take blood three to five times a year, while the already scarce younger donors go on average only one and a half times a year for blood donation. On the other hand multiply „with increasing age the diseases for whose treatment a blood bank is needed“, so that the aging of the population can expect an increase in the need for stored blood, explained Düppe. The almost 3.9 million blood donations per year could thus in future no longer be sufficient to supply all the needy patients. There is „some experts say that an age avalanche is approaching us“, stressed the spokesman for the DRC blood transfusion services. Düppe himself, however, was a bit more moderate and explained that at present „Two to three percent of the population as an active blood donor, at least in mathematical terms, still be enough air.“ Here, however, the question arises how additional donors can be mobilized.

Questionable expense allowance for blood donations
However, Düppe believes that the approach taken by some university hospitals, private services and the pharmaceutical industry of paying a flat-rate allowance for blood donation is the wrong one. For here some amounts of 25 € or more would be provided, which is equivalent to three times the daily rate of Hartz IV recipients. Thus, financial aspects threaten to play a significant role in the decision to donate blood contrary to the law. Across Europe, the statutory requirement is that the blood donation must be voluntary and free of charge. Thus, in the opinion of the expert compensation for the travel and parking costs would be appropriate, but not an amount of 25 € or more. (Fp)

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Image: Herbert Käfer