I gave blood routinely for years and years. Hours of my time on public transit and in the chair. Then, one time, I was sick and canceled because that is expected (nobody wants sick blood). They called me twice daily while I was sick to reschedule. Each time I said I would reschedule when I was healthy, but they didn’t stop calling. It made me think of them as some telemarketing predators that are profiteering on my good will. True or not that feeling made me not go back.
Why? Those “donation” companies take my free blood and sell it to hospitals for like 500 a bag and give me a t-shirt. I give when I can but don’t go out of my way unless the prize is good. If they want more donations give better prizes.
Interesting
Personally I’m a bit tangential to this, if I’m donating I’d expect the blood to go to places that need it without cost to them.
If they’re selling it, I want a fair shake too but I’d be more willing to donate to someone who would be giving it to the hospitals in need free of charge.
I’m sure there are costs associated but non-profits exist, no? Maybe there’s something I’m unaware of with how these work
Donations have to cover the costs of day operations. They need to be pay their employees, purchase supplies, money towards the buildings and/or vehicles they use, etc. I don’t know how much hospitals are paying for each donation unit, so I can’t speak on that. Blood donation centers might have a hard time operating on just monetary donations they receive. Paying donars for each donation would open the door to shady and ineligible people wanting some quick cash. There are places that pay for plasma, but I don’t have experience with them, so I’ve never looked into how they operate.
My personal experience. I had to pause donating platelets recently due to a medical issue, but I have donated regularly for the last few years. I’ve never done it for t-shirts or gifts. I donated because platelets help people. The Red Cross has a feature that will usually tell where your donation went after itvhas been processed. I would always have good day when mine was shipped to a children’s hospital. I hope I can start donating again soon.
This is it. People have to stop believing that paying staff is apparently a “waste of funds”.
As a specialist in my industry, I don’t work at schools and nonprofits, not because I don’t want to, but because their pay is usually half of the industry average. It’s sad. And you can’t “donate your speciality” to these places either. Nobody wants a volunteer specialist.
I’ve looked into plasma, apparently a lot of the world won’t use US plasma because we pay donors for it, it does incentivize bad behavior, and most countries won’t allow plasma donation any more frequently than blood donation. Which is every 8-ish weeks. We can do two donations a week (and it’s incentivized to encourage just that). Some desperate people game the system to do it at multiple places, even resorting to eating various things (like ketchup packets) to trick the blood tests.
But even then these companies sell it for enough (I think it’s used for cancer treatments?) to make enough on the domestic market that even paying for it is highly profitable.
apparently a lot of the world won’t use US plasma because we pay donors for it
well not just that but also a history of lying about it and continuing to sell blood that they knew was infected…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood_products
Well said. It’s a big problem we have nowadays where people don’t want to accept that most if not all things in life are nuanced. It’s not all black and white.
And it’s sad that this lack of critical thinking is costing blood donations centers their ability to function adequately.
There isn’t any nuance, these morons are just wrong.
They just don’t realize how expensive of an operation it is, and don’t realize how fucked in the head it is for a “leftist” to demand a cut of a non-existent profit margin to help the sick.
I have literally zero doubt that the Red Cross C-level is a corrupt party of failed for-profit executives (namely the CEO and her cronies, look her up), but this idea that it’s an immoral act to sell the blood to cover operation costs is…
Laughable. Contemptuous ignorance at its worst.
And it’s not like these morons are donating to Blood Assurance or a local bank instead.
Case in point.
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lol.
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Fwiw, about a decade ago I had a conversation with (iirc) a red cross employee who worked with blood banks. They said they make about 350 a pint but it costs about 300 to do all the required testing like HIV/hepatitis screening.
As with all jobs: if you pay (enough), people will come.
How exactly do you think they keeps the lights on in those “donation companies?”
Not necessarily upset with the donation company. But the hospital takes that 500 bag and sells it to patients for thousands and now they also limit how much blood is given per surgery instead of the amount the surgeons ask for so in an complications they have to wait for approval for more blood or simply don’t have it and the patient dies because the hospital corporations wanted to save a buck. There are articles about this all over the net.
In my county if I donate once a year I can get as much free blood as I need from the hospitals in the county should I ever need it. That encourages people in our area to donate often.
Yeah the “donor list” compensation scheme is probably the quickest, safest, and most effective way to increase donations.
It’s beneficial to both donors and patients while being proven not to risk the safety of the blood supply the way cash payments do.
No.
Start taxing billionaires, fix the housing market, pay us decent wages and maybe we might volunteer to be your blood bags you fucking boomer vampires.
How is the Red Cross responsible for any of that?
It’s hilarious, and telling, that they think the people to lash out against are people needing blood transfusions.
Aka
Cancer, anemia, and trauma patients. Pregnant mothers with complications. Premature infants.
All because “People needing blood must be boomers, so just die.”
A trash opinion, from a trash human, proud of its spiteful ignorance, scared of a prick of pain and a minor inconvenience.
The number of upvotes that comment has is also very telling.
Restore sanity to the McDonald’s dollar menu, stop my neighbor’s dog from barking after 8pm, add more Arcane weapons to Elden Ring DLC, and bring spicy popcorn back to my 7-11, and then Red Cross, we might volunteer to be your blood bags.
It’s sad that you’re so cynical that you can’t stand the idea of helping another human simply because all people deserve life.
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Socialize your blood, privatize profits.
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How to worsen the blood shortage with just two sentences.
There is a lot of good discussion here, but I’d like to toss in something else. Look around at the society we live in. Corporations don’t care about health and well-being. Insurance companies don’t care about health and well-being. Political leaders don’t care about health and well-being. Pundits and think tanks don’t care about health and well-being.
Caring, volunteering, and donation all require the right frame of mind. Between the stress of daily survival and the messages we get from the people with the most power and the loudest voices, it surprises me that anyone is still donating.
Wonder if there is any work done on synthetic blood, or if that’s the one thing man can not create.
DARPA in particular has invested in several projects to try to develop a synthetic blood alternative. There’s no chance anytime soon of reproducing all of the functionality of real blood. The research is mostly targeting something that could be transfused in an emergency that could keep someone alive while they’re transported to a care facility (maintain pressure and distribute some oxygen without inducing toxicity), especially something that would be field-deployable with a longer shelf life, preferably without refrigeration.
They’re on the way. I saw something last year where they’re working on it. I think in its current state it can deliver oxygen but it’s not helping clotting or stabilizing blood pressure yet.
After they work those parts out, the next step will be getting approved which will take time.
It’s a good question. I’m not a biological engineer so I’m not sure what’s stopping us from cloning blood. I feel like that’s where the sweet spot would be for a while.
There’s been “something on the way” for fifty years.
First of all no.
Second of all fucking vampires
In reality I have a massive issue with needles that makes me super uncomfortable. Won’t go into details but I need a moment to recover when I get any work done around them . Legitimately less stress to not tell my partner something only for it to become a “surprise”
They fucked up and left me with a month of bruising, so no.
That’s always a risk. I give blood about 6 times a year and that’s only happened to me once over the last 3 years.
No chance! I’m keeping my blood in my freezer with… my money!!!
