I gave blood for a few years but had to stop when I had to get transfusions myself last year, once you have a transfusion you can't donate ever again. I was pleased to donate as the Board were always looking for donations. While I donated it was obvious that that the vast majority of people donating blood were Irish. With 500,000 plus immigrants here and myself living in a multicultural part of Dublin I never saw any foreigner donating blood at any school or clinic I went too. Apparently Africans can't donate here due to the whole AIDS/HIV issue.
a few points to make.
As Africans can't donate blood here and there are thousands of African immigrants living here now, is there not a case for them to donate their own blood products to the Blood Transfusion Board for their own use?
Would it make more sense to pay blood donors a small fee of 10 to 20 euro to encourage more donations? I am sure the extra cost could be recouped from the hospital end users, and anyway the nurses, doctors and admin at the mobile clinics must be on good money and expenses anyway. Certainly the head of the BTB here is on a comparable salary to his/her UK counterpart and the UK operation is very much larger with much more staff and donors than Ireland.
a few points to make.
As Africans can't donate blood here and there are thousands of African immigrants living here now, is there not a case for them to donate their own blood products to the Blood Transfusion Board for their own use?
Would it make more sense to pay blood donors a small fee of 10 to 20 euro to encourage more donations? I am sure the extra cost could be recouped from the hospital end users, and anyway the nurses, doctors and admin at the mobile clinics must be on good money and expenses anyway. Certainly the head of the BTB here is on a comparable salary to his/her UK counterpart and the UK operation is very much larger with much more staff and donors than Ireland.