Recently, Russian media outlets, from which information is sometimes leaked to the Ukrainian mass media, have been actively spreading information about a seemingly critical shortage of blood and its components in Ukrainian hospitals. And the fake about the requirement to donate blood to school students even needed refutation by international fact-checkers.
We explain how blood reserves are formed in hospitals, where they come from and whether there is enough of it.
Systematic planned donation has been built in Ukraine, which makes it possible to ensure stable supplies of blood and its components.
In the conditions of a full-scale war, Ukrainians quite actively respond to all calls to donate blood. As a rule, voluntary donation makes it possible to meet the needs of blood and its components for civilian and military medical institutions.
During the period of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, Ukraine did not turn to foreign partners for blood components, as there were no critical situations with a lack of blood.
However, it is clear that depending on the intensity of hostilities or shelling, these needs may increase in a specific institution, city, or region. Coordination of delivery of blood supplies and its components from other regions is handled by the specialized state institution “Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Center”.
We must understand that reserves of blood and its components are formed by donating blood and/or blood components at the personal will of a person who is or has decided to become a donor. And it works better and more efficiently for the blood system when donors come to blood centers all the time, and not just in case of a major emergency or in response to individual messages in the mass media or on social networks.
In the conditions of martial law, a permanent supply of donor blood is one of the conditions for ensuring the country’s defense capability and a guarantee of its national security. Therefore, we once again call to become donors and help our health care system maintain its medical front.
As part of the “Your blood can fight” campaign, we remind you that every able-bodied Ukrainian over the age of 18 can be a blood donor. Among the mandatory requirements: a body weight of at least 50 kg and the absence of contraindications to donation (you can read about contraindications in detail at the link https://utcc.gov.ua/blooddonor/).
To become a donor, you can:
- Contact a blood center (almost every city has blood centers or other medical facilities where you can donate blood).
- Register by phone in the donor database at the blood centers of your city. All medical institutions that stockpile blood have their own donor base and contact them if blood is needed (the list of blood centers is at the link: https://cutt.ly/TCWc6NV).
- Register online in the register of donors. Anyone who wants to donate blood can register on the relevant web services, enter all the necessary information there and wait for a message from the coordinators. You can enter your data on the resource https://www.donor.ua/.
