When I visit a doctor and receive an injection of any kind, the pre-injection sterilization procedure is basically a brief swipe of the skin with an alcohol-soaked towelette.
When I donate blood, the needle site is wiped down with an alcohol-soaked towelette; scrubbed for 30-60 seconds with an iodine-saturated swab; and then given one last, careful outward-spiraling wipedown with a second iodine-soaked swab.
Why is the sterilization procedure so much more intensive for blood donation than for other skin-piercing procedures? Is this for my protection, or the protection of anyone who receives my blood?
My guess is the Red Cross or whoever takes your blood really has to make sure they follow all the correct procedures so they can use the blood. They don’t want anyone coming after them for slack procedures.
Also, those receiving blood are often already in poor health, making them susceptible to opportunistic infection. What might not be a threat to a healthy patient recieving an injection could be dangerous for a patient recieving a transfusion.
The OP is asking about blood donation, which is directly into a vein. Blood collection services generally have a set of standard procedure regarding the swabbing of the vein prior to puncture. It is indeed to protect you as well as protect the recipient of the blood. As you may know, there are all kinds of organisms present on the skin–staph being quite prevalent.
I think a lot of it got more rigorous when AIDS first hit. There was an unfounded fear that donating blood could cause HIV. I’ve been donating blood since 1983, and the procedures got a lot more obvious and showily sterile circa 1986.
I agree that some of it is probably theatre so the donor is comfortable that there are no bugs being introduced to his system. I wonder also if it’s associated with needle size – I get semi-regular blood draws at a Dr.'s office which uses a much smaller needle – presumably because they don’t need the same flow rate to fill two test tubes as a whole pint bag.
i would think that for a donation, sterilization is more of an issue for two reasons. bacteria could be spread rapidly throughout your body. contamination of the donated blood. i think that donations can be mixed into appropriate batches and processing started before all test results are had for each individual donor’s blood. when a disease or contamination is found they then throw out that batch.
The blood taken in a donation may have to be stored for multiple days before it is given to the recipient. Contaminating bacteria could multiply during this storage period. Therefore it is even more critical to avoid any contamination.
/when I was going through IV training, the doc running the program went through the procedure for sterilizing the IV site prior to starting the IV. He then added, " Actually, you could probably spit on it and it would do as much good."
Of course this was for emergency response in the field, not in a controlled environment like a blood center.
I asked about that a few donations ago - I was told that it is because blood donation is regulated by the FDA (because it is a commodity?) and they have tons stricter standards than any hospital.
Not positive that is the true scoop, but it is what the phlebotomist told me!
Also, if a nurse (or other medical professional) is drawing your blood for testing, it’s not going into another person. The sterilization procedure done on blood donations is not for the donor’s protection, but the receiver’s protection. A quick swab with alcohol keeps your skin’s bacteria from getting into your bloodstream in significant quantity. That little quantity could make a recipient with a diminished immune system very ill, or even kill them, I would presume, so more drastic measures are mandated. I know that every time one of my AIDS-infected friends had blood taken for analysis, he had the more extensive procedure done prior to the nurse drawing blood. This was, however, 13 years ago, so things may have changed.
