2023-06-14 03:00:06
The French Blood Establishment (EFS), the sole civil operator of blood transfusion in France, returned in 2023 to a situation “mastered”, after a very complicated year 2022, during which blood supplies reached a historically low threshold. However, the organization, which ensures national self-sufficiency in blood products, hopes to renew its stocks in June before the summer period and is launching a new campaign to appeal for donations.
Cathy Bliem, Chief Executive of EFS, provides an update on World Blood Donor Day, which takes place on Wednesday 14 June.
What is the state of blood stocks in 2023?
The year 2022 was marked by the need to launch two “vital emergency appeals”. It had never happened to us in twenty-two years of existence. We were forced to do so because the reserves of blood products and the concentrated red blood cells [qui peut être conservé jusqu’à quarante-deux jours] were extremely low at the start of the year, due to the wave of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. We had significant absenteeism within our teams and with some donors.
No blood bag has ever been missed by patients, but the year 2022 has shown us how extremely dependent donations are on the economic and health context. You can see that people come when the country is in good health. As soon as it experiences difficulties – Covid-19, therefore, but also gasoline shortages or social movements which prevent people from moving around – blood donation drops. We need a country in good shape for people to donate blood.
Since the beginning of 2023, the situation has improved. Firstly because the donors were present enough, but also because the consumption of blood products has fallen due to the reduction in the supply of care and hospital activity, which has not returned to its level. before the Covid-19 crisis. There are still quite a few services closed and scheduled surgeries postponed.
The situation is therefore under control for the time being. We have about 88,000 bags of blood in reserve, but that won’t be enough to start the summer. We would like it to go up around 100,000, 110,000 pockets. This world day is an opportunity to remember that needs are daily.
What are the means implemented by the EFS to meet the demand?
We need 10,000 donations a day. It is a daily challenge. We can never rest on our laurels. With the various public holidays in May, we lost between 30,000 and 35,000 donations, which, on the eve of the major holidays, must be found. Levels are moderately low and need to be raised before summer, the time of year when donation centers in major cities tend to be a little less busy.
During this period, we go as close as possible to the donors by organizing collections along the coasts, in the mountains, in the resort areas. Because patients don’t take vacations. Before that, all this week, nearly two hundred event collections are scheduled throughout France in emblematic places, such as the Pantheon, in Paris, or the Montpellier Opera.
Throughout the year, we invite donors to come regularly and we meet them by organizing collections in universities or companies. The increase in telework has forced us to reinvent ourselves: we have set up appointments at donation centers and organize collections in communal places at the end of the afternoon to be available when donors are. .
What is the donor profile?
In 2022, we recorded 1,550,000 active donors for 2,400,000 donations. Among them, there are 30% of people under the age of 30. The 30-45 year olds have a little less availability; they enter the job market, some start a family.
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In addition, each year, 170,000 donors leave our files because they reach the age limit [fixée à 70 ans]. Attracting and welcoming young donors and first-time donors is a real challenge for us. That’s why we reach out to them through social media.
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The other challenge is to retain them. Donating once is good, but giving many times [les hommes peuvent donner jusqu’à six fois par an, les femmes quatre fois] it’s even better, since there is no period in the year when the needs drop. Especially since we also need donors of phenotype of interest or rare phenotype [des groupes sanguins rares, nécessaires notamment pour les patients atteints de drépanocytose].
To find out where to donate, go to dondesang.efs.sante.fr or the Don de sang app.
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