Every year with the summer comes the complaint: the blood supplies are running out. It’s the same this year, far too few people are currently donating blood. “The emergency care can still be maintained,” says Patric Nohe, spokesman for the blood donation service of the Bavarian Red Cross (BRK), but there are almost no reserves left. What is tapped from the donors is used again almost immediately. According to Nohe, more than 2,000 blood units are needed every day in Bavaria, for example for operations, in the event of accidents and, above all, for cancer therapy.
The situation seems to have eased after World Blood Donor Day last week, says Nohe. In fact, only apparently: “If people want to book an appointment online for the next few days, they see that many things are fully booked. But it’s a mistake to think that everything will be fine with us again.” Even if many people could be reached around the date.
However, for the BRK, 365 days a year should actually be World Blood Donor Day. Right now is the most dangerous time, he says, meaning a kind of “post-alarm mood”: If you don’t get an appointment now, you have to conclude that the situation can’t be that tense. But the problem is the shelf life of the blood products: it is only five to six weeks.
It is possible that the situation will be much more worrying again in a month, when the summer holidays begin in Bavaria. Especially in this first post-corona summer, when many people have a particularly great need for leisure activities. And that doesn’t include donating blood. “Because people don’t yet know what could happen again in the fall, many just don’t care at the moment. They say I just want to go out now.” Nohe can understand that, he says, he grants everyone freedom without Corona rules, but people’s ideas, which are finally spontaneous again, just don’t go together with his ideas of continuity.
Sometimes false reports circulate on the internet
Old questions pop up again, for example: why doesn’t the Red Cross pay money for blood donations? Couldn’t that attract more donors? Do other private donation services and hospitals too. Nohe replies: “But I haven’t heard from other institutions that pay money that they don’t have any problems.”
Like the other state associations, the BRK relies first and foremost on the charity of the donors: “We want a donation to remain a donation,” says Nohe. A safe donation, one could add, because Nohe believes that the financial incentive could tempt some people to give false information. For example, to hide the fact that they are newly tattooed or have recently returned from a malaria area. On the other hand, he has to admit that he hasn’t heard anything like this from other donation services either.
It is more likely that incorrect information, such as that circulating on the Internet, will inhibit the willingness to donate. In the comment columns to articles about World Blood Donor Day, for example, one could often read that vaccinated people were no longer allowed to donate. All nonsense, says Nohe. “Another hair-raising theory is that many more donations are being made than necessary and that we are sending the money to the USA or to African warlords,” says Nohe.
The lack of blood supplies could increase again during the summer holidays when potential donors are on vacation. The reserves remain the problem. “Lighter operations have already been postponed again in some hospitals,” says Nohe. It cannot be ruled out that this could become an acute issue again during the holidays.