Because there’s not a lawyer alive who can craft a waiver air tight enough to make the hospital administrators certain you (or your family members) won’t sue them anyway. Even if you/family lost the lawsuit eventually, the cost of defending themselves isn’t worth it to the hospital, especially when there *is *enough blood to go around to those who *need *it.
Delaying elective procedures isn’t indicative of enough of a “lack of supply” to make them change the rules. They may indeed relax some of the guidelines in the future, if older donors aren’t replaced with eligible younger donors, but we’re not in enough of a crunch yet to make it necessary. We’re in enough of a crunch to step up awareness campaigns and try to get new donors who do meet the eligibility criteria, but not enough of a crunch to change those criteria.
I’ve donated several gallons of O neg (and CMV neg) over the years, and my experiences vary from excellent to “never going back there again” depending on location. Fortunately, I live in a city with several Red Cross locations. Most are pleasant, efficient, and respectful of the time I’m giving to the donation process.
A few have been the opposite. It’s puzzling when I’m trying to do the right thing and donate much-needed blood to help my fellow man, I’m treated like an unwanted pest. Why does the Red Cross spend huge money on advertising, begging for donors, if their workers are actively working against them?
At one Red Cross office, I was the only donor in the place. I was donating during my lunch hour. Probably 8 workers/volunteers standing around, yet I was told to go sit in this row, now move to that row, now come up here and answer these questions, now go sit in that other row. Tedious, silly and time-wasting. When I finally finished sitting in all their designated rows and was able to lay back and actually donate my bag 'o blood, someone cranked up a nasty (like really nasty lyrics) hip-hop CD to ear crushing decibels on the other side of my curtained-off cubicle, and refused to turn it down when I politely asked. Never went back there.
The funniest experience was a Red Cross worker who refused to take my blood because I had visited Tahiti that year. She said “Tahiti, Haiti… same place”. When I tried to explain the difference between Tahiti and Haiti, she was unbending and refused to get her supervisor when I asked. I left without donating. Never went back there, either.
I still donate when I can, but the process can be irritating.
I gave for years until the Red Cross asked me to stop coming in. I have something in my blood that triggers an HIV test (no, I don’t have AIDs) so it isn’t worth their trouble. I guess the full test, the test that would show my blood really doesn’t have HIV, is too expensive to make my blood worth the bother. Oh well, I was giving it away for a couple of cookies and some juice so no skin off my back.
Yes, my contract requires me to put in a dig against the US in every post :rolleyes:
The media back then reported that the untested blood was imported from the US and came from druggies and homeless there. That’s where I heard it - news media. I doubt that I can dig up english-language cites from German TV news back before widespread internet, though.
There is however a bunch of blood being sold internationally because of local shortages; and standards - both laws and rules from the organizations - might differ. Probably it wasn’t the Red Cross, but some local group that found that paying druggies 20 dollars and selling the blood for 80 dollars made for good profit; it’s quite possible that they were shut down because of stricter laws in the meantime.
But a company willing to cut corners on safety to buy from questionable dealers, too, doesn’t sound far-fetched to me.
ETA - I keep meaning to go donate again, since there’s a shortage and all - I just came back from Mexico, but not the part of Mexico with any danger of malaria. Will they just hear “Mexico” and disqualify me, or can I donate if I tell them I was up in the highlands?
ETAA - They do (not the Red Cross, for-profit places) pay for plasma.
This sounds weird to me. Shouldn’t they keep a chart of you if you are a regular that notes this phenomenon and the doctor gives you an exemption? (They do have a doctor checking you out after filling out the questionnaire, right?)
In our local health house, they do keep a file, and when you hit a round number like 10, 25, 40 donations you get a bronze, silver, golden etc. pin to wear and proclaim that you are a regular, conscientious donor.
Like me. I’m taking a prescription that can cause birth defects.
I’m willing to bet that if all the people in the U.S who are currently taking the same drug as I am all gave blood, that the chance that even one unit would end up being given to a pregnant women whose fetus was at the precise stage of development to make a birth defect most likely, and then to actually develop that birth defect, is statistically insignificant.
But the two blood banks in town disagree. Neither of them want my blood.
Wow, that’s incredibly dumb. I can understand if you don’t want to do their work for them, but the right thing to do would be to complain to the supervisor about both cases, because the supervisors at least should understand why driving donors away is a bad strategy.
If there ever happens a case where blood supply - esp. of some rare combo - is too low at one (small rural*?) hospital during a big emergency and somebody is severely injured or even dies because of that - would we, the public, hear about it?
If there is enough blood of this type in the next city, but it takes 45 min. of drive to get the blood bag, or it takes too long to thaw out the frozen reserves, or whatever during an emergency where every minute counts…
Or is it impossible for the autopsy to tell “one more bag of blood would’ve saved him” instead of “his injuries were too severe”?
Or would the hospital never disclose it because of fear of being sued?
Our ads say that 37% of the US population are eligible to donate blood, and 10% do, at least once a year. Why do German blood donation services/Red Cross consider only 7% of the population eligible?
Maybe its the much greater chance that a German citizen has been to England, or another country with exclusion conditions, than a US citizen.
The US in a way has more lenient blood donation guidelines than other countries. In the US, you can donate blood (or at least attempt) every 56 days. Other countries don’t accept more than 3-4 times per year for some populations (women).
Zsofia, if it is a well run blood donation place, they’ll have an updated binder with all the deferral countries, and even the states and regions that are specifically deferred. For example, I travel to Brazil on a semi-constant basis. Yet, I spend my time in one specific city and region that is considered to be “safe” from all the diseases they defer. So they continue to accept my platelets/whole blood.
To whomever said about giving “informed consent” to the patient. Sometimes (many times?) there is no time for you to give consent (trauma/burns/unexpected outcomes).
I most recently donated last week, not with The Red Cross, but with another organization. They ask whether you’ve been to Mexico in the last 12 months, and if so, ask you to wait to donate until 12 months have passed since your trip. They don’t differentiate by region within Mexico. So please do donate next year!
No, they have a volunteer who takes your vital signs and hemoglobin count and makes sure they’re in the required limits, and who looks over the questionnaire and asks you the same questions verbally. The volunteer may be an RN, but I’ve never seen an MD at a blood drive, except the ones donating blood. It may be different if you donate at a blood center; I’ve never done that.
Probably not, but we, the public, aren’t the ones who make the guidelines and may amend them if need outstrips supply. The FDA, blood banks and hospitals know where the shortages are and how severe they are, and thus far, haven’t seen *enough *of a shortage to warrant an increase in risks - medical risks to patients and financial risks to blood banks and hospitals - by loosening the guidelines.
Not here. Every time that I have given blood, an RN does everything.
They don’t even trust you to be honest on paper. After filling out all the paperwork and providing blood samples from all of your little sister’s BFF’s former boyfriends (just kidding), they take you into a little room where they administer the sex questions in person, orally.
That’s probably the case - As far as I’ve heard anecdotally, US citizens are less likely to travel internationally (hey, we have this HUGE country with lots to do right here!), and travel to Canada and Mexico from the US is cheaper and very popular.
I believe the Red Cross has a policy that if you have ever tested positive for HIV, even if it is determined that it was a false positive, you are not allowed to donate blood again.
And there are no doctors involved in the donation process. One of the phlebotomists reviews your answers, and takes your pulse, bp and iron, but that’s it.
Iron isn’t just found in red meat; it’s in leafy green vegetables, legumes, poultry, and fortified cereals and breads. (Cite) Some people just don’t eat that stuff, or they don’t eat enough to maintain a level high enough to be able to donate. Low iron also affects menstruating women, not just women who have recently been pregnant. (I’ve been deferred for both reasons.) There has to be a cutoff level somewhere, and “low hemoglobin” may be just below that cutoff, so it’s not a medically-significant problem that needs to be treated.
This is fine in theory, and it does work if you know you’re having surgery that far in advance, but if you don’t, you’re kind of stuck. Plus, family and friends can donate to replace blood that was used, but they need to qualify as donors first.
Or, just stamp the blood bag with an “unsuitable for preggers” stamp on it and give it to some man. Surely it can’t be the case that the number of women who could possibly be pregnant and need blood so outweighs the number of men, infertile or post-menopausal women, celibate women, and little girls that need blood that the blood would go to waste if so marked?
Again, the risk of someone getting specially marked blood who shouldn’t is just too high a risk for hospitals - and nurses, individually, cause we can be sued independently of the hospital if we give the wrong bag of blood - to take. We already have to double check blood with two RN’s before we give it, to match the name, birthdate, blood type, etc. and yet still errors happen. If we don’t need to take another risk, why should we? Especially when the risk is to the “innocent babies and mothers” - the most likely to sue and the most likely to win lawsuits. It’s just not gonna happen unless we have no other options…and that’s not the case now.