When hospitals order blood products, patients often struggle with death. But the camps of the blood donation services have recently been dangerously empty. The willingness to donate blood has been falling for years – the younger generation in particular is difficult to reach, experts say. “We are really heading for a critical point,” warns Patric Nohe from the German Red Cross (DRK). That’s why young people are the focus of World Blood Donor Day this time. They should be reached with campaigns in social networks. Because blood cannot be replaced by anything in medicine.
“Without blood, several thousand people in Germany would have no chance of survival every day,” emphasizes Nohe. In the baby boomer generation there were still many loyal donors who donated half a liter of blood four, five or even six times a year. But this generation is getting older. Since March there has no longer been a strict age limit that excludes seniors from donating blood. But many older people have illnesses, need medication and are therefore not suitable as donors. “Loyal blood donors suddenly become blood recipients,” says Nohe.
In order for the system to continue to function in the future, more young people urgently need to become regular blood donors, experts warn. Successful generational change is ultimately a matter of life and death. Because for accident victims and cancer patients there will be no alternative to donated blood for a long time, emphasizes Professor Holger Hackstein, Chairman of the German Society for Transfusion Medicine and Immunohaematology.
For decades attempts have been made to produce the vital blood components in the laboratory. But it is “completely unrealistic” to expect relief for patient care in the foreseeable future, says Hackstein. “Our blood has managed nature in a unique way.”
So new blood donors have to be found. Especially young people. But that is all too seldom the case. It is not the case that young people never come to donate blood. “If we warn that the situation is getting difficult, then we experience a great wave of solidarity – fortunately that works,” says Nohe. But many young people would only come once and not regularly. Therefore, after the last calls for help at the turn of the year, the blood donation camps are well stocked at the moment – but the next bottleneck at the end of the summer holidays is already in sight.
The industry relies on a mixture of information and increasingly also on emotion – and on social networks. The DRK, by far the largest blood donation service in Germany, tells stories on social networks about young people whose lives were saved by donating blood. For World Blood Donor Day, the DRK won celebrities like Motsi Mabuse, Laura Wontorra and Mats Hummels, who want to do without the letters A, B and O in their texts on social networks – for the blood groups A, B, and 0. The slogan for this: “It’s only noticeable when it’s missing.”
The Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) provides information about the requirements and the procedure for donating blood, and about how different products for accident victims and cancer patients are made from the blood. Blood services are also working to notify donors when their blood has reached a patient. “I would like to see what happened to my blood,” says transfusion medicine specialist Hackstein. Such information makes the benefits of blood donation clear.
Financial incentives for blood donors, on the other hand, are controversial. According to the law in Germany, donors may receive a maximum of 25 euros in compensation. However, many blood donation centers do not draw even this amount. The DRK blood donation services do not pay any money at all. “A blood donation shouldn’t happen under financial constraints. And it’s also not true that young people only do something for money,” says DRK spokesman Nohe.
Overall, less than three percent of people in Germany regularly donate blood. In the cities, the proportion is significantly lower than in the countryside. This could cause an acute bottleneck again in the coming weeks when many donors are on vacation or prefer to go to the outdoor pool. “It’s almost like you can see this brewing storm in the distance again,” says Nohe.
BZgA Director Martin Dietrich appeals to anyone who is in good health to donate blood. Everyone fears an emergency like last year, when hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, could no longer be fully supplied with the blood they needed. Dietrich emphasizes: “We can all come into a situation in which we are dependent on blood products.”
