< Blood Service News - 10.06.2010

World Blood Donor Day celebrated on 14th June

Blood donors save lives every day by donating their blood to patients who need help. Blood required in surgical operations, for saving accident victims, and for treatment of critically ill patients cannot be replaced artificially. World Blood Donor Day is celebrated on 14th June each year, around the world, to highlight the significance of blood donation.

In Finland, donating blood is voluntary and donors do not receive payment in exchange for blood. This tradition goes back a long way: the first active blood donors were scouts 70 years ago. Since 1948, the Finnish Red Cross Blood Service has been responsible for arranging blood donation. Today, the service relies on the same principles of operation as decades ago.

‘Voluntary blood donors are true everyday life-savers. In Finland they help as many as 50,000 patients in need of blood every year,’ says Satu Pastila, the director of Blood Donation Operations at the FRC Blood Service.

Regular blood donors keep the blood reserves in order

Each year, the FRCBS supplies hospitals with approximately 250,000 red cell components and 40,000 platelet components. Moreover, plasma-derived medicinal products needed in Finland are manufactured from blood plasma separated from whole blood.

Therefore, some 1,000 blood donors are needed in Finland every weekday. The continuous challenge in blood donation is to ensure the sufficiency of platelets, which remain usable for only five days from the time of donation. Therefore, blood collection should remain steady all year round.

‘We hope that blood donors would visit us 2–3 times a year, as that would facilitate maintaining an adequate blood supply at all times,’ says Ms Pastila.

Thank you, blood donors!

World Blood Donor Day has been celebrated since 2004. The event is organised by the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IRFC), the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT), and the International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations (IFBDO/FIODS).

The date of the event, 14 June, is also the birthday of Karl Landsteiner, the Austrian Nobel Prize winner who discovered the ABO blood group system. At the time, the discovery of ABO blood groups established the basis for safe blood transfusions, and blood groups still play a key role in their successful execution today.

‘World Blood Donor Day is one way to express appreciation to all blood donors for their invaluable input in helping patients,’ sums up Ms Pastila.

Finnish Red Cross Blood Service Donor Centre locations will celebrate the day again this year by offering cake and coffee to all donors.

(World Blood Donor Day webpages)