About 40% of the persons who donate blood in Moldova are volunteers. The rest are constrained to become donors by certain situations. The head of the National Blood Transfusion Center Svetlana Cebotari has told IPN that the specialists want more volunteer donors, but the doctors often lose patience and oblige the patients to bring persons who would donate blood.
According to Svetlana Cebotari, almost 30% of the persons who come to donate blood are not accepted because they do not meet the eligibility criteria. The people in Moldova do not take care of their health and, though they consider themselves perfectly healthy, some of them establish that this is not so and they cannot donate blood.
“Those who donate blood have an additional chance to determine the state of their health. They are informed about their problems and told about a healthy lifestyle. There are cases when we identify persons with health problems and send them to the doctor to be given treatment,” said Svetlana Cebotari.
The National Blood Transfusion Center regularly carries out campaigns aimed at informing the people about voluntary donation. There are four blood transfusion centers in Moldova at present, one of which is in Transnistria. Also, there are 19 blood collection units, three of which are situated in the Transnistrian region. About two tonnes of blood are collected monthly at these units. This quantity is enough for the country.
“The doctors should not force somebody to donate blood. It would be excellent if all the donors were volunteers so that the patients came to the hospital calmly and did not bother about bringing relatives or acquaintances to donate blood. We must talk abut this continuously. Now we have blood, but may not have tomorrow,” said the Center’s head.
15% of all the volunteer donors donate blood regularly. The regular blood donors enjoy a number of benefits, including free trips by public transport. An eligible person can donate blood once in two months, while blood components, such as plasma, once in two weeks.
