Only one percent of blood donations in the state of Jalisco are made with altruistic motives, according to Hector Raul Perez Gomez, the director of Guadalajara’s Civil Hospital.
Speaking prior to World Blood Donor Day, celebrated on 14 June every year, Perez Gomez said his goal over the next 12 months is to double the amount of voluntary blood donations at Guadalajara’s two main public “civil” hospitals (Fray Antonio Alcalde and Juan I. Menchaca).
The vast majority of blood donations come from family members and friends of relatives who require urgent treatment or surgery. When a patient enters hospital for surgery or in an emergency, relatives are usually pressured into donating blood, if not for their own relative, to maintain supplies in the blood bank.
Perez Gomez admitted that surgery for some patients is often delayed due to insufficient stocks of certain blood types.However, civil hospital officials stress that no one has died in either of their facilities because they were unable to receive a blood transfusion.
Blood may be donated at either of the two civil hospitals, which generally care for the state’s most economically challenged citizens.
The list of requirements specifies that donors must be aged between 18 and 65, have not received any vaccines in the past month or consumed or medicines or alcohol in the past 48 hours. They cannot be suffering from any sickness or ailment and women cannot be menstruating. Additionally, anyone with a history of certain illnesses, in particular hepatitis, should not donate blood.
World Blood Donor Day serves to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to thank voluntary unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has set 2012 as the target year for all countries to obtain 100 percent of blood supplies from voluntary unpaid donors. Donors in Mexico are not paid for their blood.
The blood donation rate per 1,000 of population is about 12 donations in middle-income countries and four donations per 1,000 in low-income countries, according to the WHO.