Blood donation: positives and negatives

By AzerNews

What are the benefits and disadvantages of blood donation? There is no definite answer to this question. So, keep in mind that too much of one thing is good for nothing.

Certainly, there is no need to donate blood when you are sick or feel bad. Also, it is not a good practice to donate blood more often than once in 60 days. Generally, blood can be donated 3-5 times a year. The rest of the time the human organism needs to regenerate itself.

The donor can be anyone 18 years of age and older, who has good health and can donate blood without harming his or her organism. A standard amount of blood which can be donated by a healthy person is 450 ml.

There is a practice of blood donation in Azerbaijan. Along with special facilities, there are special organizations dealing with this issue.

The Association of Blood Donors of Azerbaijan was established by a group of voluntary blood donors in 2007. The main purpose of the association is to create a voluntary national donor network and to support people who need blood.

According to the head of the Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion Sultan Aliyev, unpaid donation is developed enough in Azerbaijan; even foreign experts have noted that the achievements of Azerbaijan in this area in a year exceed their own ones made in decades, because their voluntary donation is underdeveloped. All medical institutions of Azerbaijan donate blood regularly throughout the year, so, about 5,000 people just in hospitals annually donate blood.

"We don't need to introduce the paid donation. It should also be noted that paid donors are often people from the lower layers (of society), often homeless people," Aliyev said.

He said that after testing and certification donated blood is sent to blood banks.

"Currently there are no problems with blood donation in Azerbaijan. When donated blood is from a paid donor, this person is examined only twice a year, but it is possible that he would get sick in the meantime. Only a small percentage of blood that we collect is unsuitable due to the fact that people did not know about their disease and this blood is not allowed into the bank. It is difficult to keep track of this during a paid donation, because the blood is often transfused into the patient immediately, although it must be checked."

Aliyev also noted that most of the donated blood is used for thalassemia patients and during difficult transplant surgeries, when about 5-6 liters of blood are required.

"Now you cannot hear announcements on the radio when somebody's looking for donors, because people are aware of the blood banks. Even private clinics are given blood for free. For example, last year we prepared about 25 tons of blood. We have 8 branches in the country and when people need blood, they can receive it from there, " he said.

Parliament member Musa Guliyev, in turn, said that over the past 7-8 years, blood donation has been free in Azerbaijan.

"When we adopted a law, our opponents argued that free donation will only aggravate the situation and lead to the fact that there will not be donors in the country and no one will want to donate his blood for free," Guliyev noted.

He said researches show that most of the paid blood donors are persons with chronic or infectious diseases, as well as drug addicts or alcoholics, who donate blood only to get money.

"After this we decided to make blood donation free in the country. It may sound paradoxically, but after this decision the number of donors in the country increased by 30 percent. Now most of the donors are quite healthy people. Thus, this experience has shown us that free donation is more effective than the paid one," the MP said.

As a result of the implementation of the state program "Donation of blood, blood components and the development of blood services" the number of blood donors in Azerbaijan has increased by more than half in the past five years.

Paid blood donation has long existed, but the whole world is trying to give up this practice, as the safety of the blood is ensured only by voluntary donation, because unpaid donors are driven by humane ideas, while donors interested financially may conceal negative information about their health condition.