Following an increase in 2002, there was a six per cent decline in public blood donations last year, while demand from hospitals for blood is rising by the same amount.
New regulations introduced to combat the vCJD risk are also set to rule out roughly one in 20 of current donors in addition to the one in five volunteers to the blood banks whose health status already precludes donations.
Blood only lasts 35 days while platelets (a component of blood used to treat cancer patients) last just five days. Launching its annual report for 2003, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service yesterday noted that hospitals need 3,000 blood donations a week to carry out operations. It acknowledged that to meet this demand innovative means will have to be found to expand the donor base if shortages are not to arise.
The service has been through troubled times, even since it accepted the Lindsay report's 2002 findings of the old BTSB's culpable role in allowing HIV contamination of haemophiliacs and transfusion recipients. Since then, internal disputes and disputes with the Minister for Health have cost the IBTS a chairman and a CEO in circumstances that leave a lot to be explained.
An inquiry was also supposed to have been established into the lengthy delays in notifying some 28 donors that they had been shown to have Hepatitis C in tests on their blood. It is still pending, with officials yesterday saying it is "in abeyance" until new legislation establishing mechanisms for slimmed-down commissions of inquiry is passed by the Oireachtas. Then the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, will have to decide what precise form it should take. Such delays, however, do not inspire confidence that justice will eventually be done.
Prolonged uncertainty about the construction of a new Cork centre to serve the Munster area is also disappointing. A design brief for the centre, costed at €23 million last year, and the necessity for which is indisputable, has been submitted to the Department of Health and is still awaiting approval. It should be expedited.
Yet the truth is that one in four of us are likely to need a transfusion at some time in our lives and the appeal for donors yesterday should not be obscured by such concerns. The service's national medical director, Dr William Murphy, spoke rightly on the key importance of promoting "a culture of altruistic and generous commitment to donation of blood in the community. Voluntary donors provide for a safer and better blood transfusion service, and a strong community commitment to blood donation is a vital element in allowing new measures to be put in place that restrict the threat of disease transmission."