UP to five years ago, the National Blood Bank had no trouble collecting up to 50,000 units of blood from willing donors across the island.

Nowadays the bank collects a dismal 23,000 units annually, well below half of what is needed for lifesaving surgeries and transfusions.

Dr Lundie Richards who recently took over as head of the Blood Bank feels that one of the reasons for the significant decline in donations is that many regular donors have either grown old, passed on, migrated or just lost interest, and the younger generation have not “taken on the mantle”.

There is also the increasingly common reason many people are unwilling donate anymore — they don’t like to think that their blood is “wasted” saving the lives of criminals. The rise in crime and violence has certainly upped the demand for blood, but Richards points out that many of the people who end up in operating theatres because of gunshot wounds are innocent victims of crime. In any case, the collection service whose role to make blood available for saving lives, cannot discriminate between people in need of blood.

“As far as we are concerned as a blood service, our role is to save lives and as to who gets it that is not important,” Richards explained.

Currently, 90 per cent of the 23,000 units which the bank manages to collect annually is from replacement donors — people whose relatives of friends are scheduled to undergo surgery and who are required to donate blood ahead of the surgery. But this still does not guard against the now common blood shortage.

“This replacement donor system does not work very well, because not every person replaces the blood that is used, so we are always in deficit,” Richards said.

He added that the only way the replacement donation system can work properly is when it is done on a one-to-one basis, where when one unit is used it is replaced, but that task is difficult and takes away from the genuineness of a transfusion service.

Richards plans to target the younger generation in the drive to push donations back up to 50,000 units, and to once again have a pool of regular, reliable donors.

“We need to put in place the necessary incentives, measures, funding, education that will improve on our donor recruitment, and I would love to launch a widespread education campaign starting with sixth-formers, college and university students, along with service club members and corporate groups,” Richards said.

Currently, companies will help organise collection among employers, but often these corporate collection drives will yield very few units. The two mobile units barely collect 30 units a week.

“We have at least two mobile sessions per week, but I am not satisfied with the general response. We are collecting between 20 and 30 units per week and doesn’t make sense to collect that amount, because the overall cost of preparing and sending out the team is not cost-effective,” Richards lamented.

Still, Richards says there is no need for Jamaica to look overseas to address the blood shortage because all that is necessary to solve the problem is more support from the public.

“Importation of blood is not on the cards right now, because we have the necessary resources, meaning people, and facilities to store blood; secondly, blood which is taken from a different international community… we cannot be absolutely sure of the safety of that blood.”

Some people are also unwilling to donate because of fears.

“They fear that they may be told that they have one of the infections such as HIV, Hepatitis B and C, Syphilis, and there is also a set of people who erroneously believe that you can get a disease by giving blood. However, last year only 0.5 per cent of donations screened pointed to HIV infection, less than two per cent for Hepatitis B and C and syphilis.

Apart from these, other medical conditions which prevent persons from giving blood include heart disease, lung disease, high and low blood pressure, recent surgery or childbirth, asthma attack within the last six months and some skin problems.

Additionally, alcoholics and drug addicts are also barred because of the drugs’ effect on blood quality.

People willing to donate blood may do so at the Blood Bank on Slipe Pen Road, the National Chest Hospital in Kingston, the University Hospital of the West Indies at Mona, the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay or the Mandeville, St Ann’s Bay, Port Antonio or May Pen hospitals.