A radical shake-up of donor policy is planned by the Blood Transfusion Service Board. The move follows a considerable down-turn in Irish donations. Operations have had to be cancelled twice this year because of blood shortages.
The BTSB medical director, Dr William Murphy, said it was a serious failure of the board not to be able to supply blood for operations.
A new national donor services manager began working this week. He will oversee the changes. "We need a fairly serious overhaul of donating, and a lot of research must be done. There is still a huge commitment to blood donations in this country, but it is becoming more difficult to tap," Dr Murphy said.
Since 1994, when the hepatitis C scandal broke, donations have fallen by 30 per cent. "But we are not unique in this. There has been a similar downturn throughout the western world."
Dr Murphy said part of the explanation may be that donating blood has become a more intrusive process. "People are, by necessity, asked more intrusive questions," he told The Irish Times.
The BTSB is entirely dependent on voluntary, unpaid blood donations, said Dr Murphy, and will remain that way into the foreseeable future.
In a good week, he said, the BTSB gets up to 3,500 donations. If this figure falls below 2,500 and stays at that level for a number of weeks serious difficulties are experienced.
The lowest level of donations to the BTSB recently was 2,100 in a week.
Blood supplies have now recovered following shortages in recent months, he said. "We had a bad few weeks around St Patrick's Day. The week before last a couple of operations were cancelled in Dublin and Galway. It is the second time this year that has happened, and it is just not good enough. We are in the business of finding blood for people who need operations, and to fail is a serious failure."
The donor programme is to be reorganised to ensure maximum coverage throughout the State.
"Since 1949 we have been doing more or less the same thing in this area. We have very low impact advertising, and it is generally by word of mouth. That was fine until 1994, but it is not enough now."
As well as Pelican House in Dublin the BTSB has a centre in Cork and an office in Limerick for its mobile clinics.
Dr Murphy said the BTSB intended opening more centres throughout the country, including Waterford and Galway.
Meanwhile, Dr Murphy said the BTSB's new £25 million headquarters on the site of St James's Hospital in Dublin would be complete by the end of 1999, making it the most modern transfusion centre in Europe capable of "producing blood components to state-of-the art manufacturing standards".
In Cork £5.5 million has been allocated for a new facility. The site has not yet been chosen.
An extensive BTSB training programme has been submitted for approval to the board of the BTSB, and an application for funding has been made to the Department of Health.
This programme, which will be funded as is the norm in the pharmaceutical industry equivalent to 5 per cent of turnover, would be introduced as part of the overall upgrading and good manufacturing programme. "That is probably the single most important thing that we are doing," said Dr Murphy.