It is not yet critical, but health chiefs are worried by the drop in blood bank donations. Coupled with the fact that staff to man the banks are also down, the situation has no ‘quick fix solution’.
In an article entitled “Blood donations drop by 12%”, Correio da Manhã reported at the weekend how new rules – prompted, as always, by austerity – have affected the service.
In the ‘old days’, blood donors enjoyed benefits – possibly the best of which was free healthcare service/hospital treatment. But this has now changed and as a spokesman for the Portuguese Institute for Blood and Transplants (IPST) said, “in 2012, we had around 7,000 donors and last year we had less than 6,000.”
Hospitals have not yet felt the drop in reserves, added the spokesman, but it is only a question of time.
Elsewhere, IPST admits it has a shortage of technicians to man blood banks to the point where two collection drives in Aveiro have had to be cancelled. IPST is now hoping to train 30 of its staff to make up the shortfall.
