Situation causing “great difficulties”
Fepodabes, the Portuguese blood donor federation has warned today that blood reserves must be increased. It refers to hospitals ‘with great difficulties’ postponing minor surgeries.
“We are aware, that, for instance, Santa Maria Hospital (in Lisbon) and the Évora Hospital, have very complicated blood levels, and are already doing some reflection concerning surgical interventions, because we always have to have a reserve, namely for accidents or specific cases that arise”, Fepodabes president, Alberto Mota, tells Lusa.
Mota was speaking after director of the Blood Service at Lisbon North’s hospital centre told Rádio Renascença (RR) that the hospital has been forced to postpone non-urgent surgeries.
“We had to postpone some scheduled surgeries, i.e. those that weren’t urgent, because there was a huge shortage, particularly in groups A and 0, but group A was the worst”, Álvaro Beleza explained. “It was a difficult situation”.
To be fair, Fepodabes perennially makes appeals for more blood (particularly during the winter months), but this year really does appear to be more problematic than most.
“It’s extraordinary. Every year, we know that in January and February, we have a drop in blood donors due to infections, flu and all that. This year, by the way, they were the best months! Then, from March until today, we can’t understand why, groups A and 0, whether negative or positive, have been falling – and we can’t get reserve levels up”, he lamented.
Lusa adds that Mota recognises that blood donations usually drop in the summer, but not so early.
“We’re already in July, and we’re having great difficulties. We don’t understand it. We know we’ve had the Covid-19 problem, it’s true, it did put people off coming to give blood – and there are respiratory infections, yes, but we still don’t understand why these four groups (A and O, positive and negative) are so low”.
Thus the ‘GIVE BLOOD THIS SUMMER – WHAT’S BETTER THAN GIVING BLOOD AND GOING ON HOLIDAY?’ campaign. Alberto Mota hopes people respond before going on holiday, saying that between 1,000 and 1,100 units of blood are needed every day.
“We need around 800 to 900 people available to donate daily. We need to have more regular donors: men every three months and women every four months, to see if we can boost these currently low reserves”, he said.
One factor that Brits will have noticed when trying to give blood in Portugal is that the blood bank will not accept anyone who lived in the UK in the 80s and 90s, due to ‘mad cow disease’.
Donations can be given at locations cited on www.dador.pt or by contacting your local hospital and finding out what days they organise blood drives.
Source material: LUSA
