Money for blood ruled out

WHILE the blood bank is anxious to get more donations, the question of paying people to give blood as way of boosting supplies has been ruled out, it was learned yesterday.

Chairwoman of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service Maura McGrath said paying people for blood was a very controversial issue and the blood bank considered it inappropriate at this stage. The challenge, she said, was getting people to see the need to give blood regularly in a positive light.

“Just 3% of the population make blood donations. Our challenge now is to increase that to around 6% or 7% then we would not have to look at payment” she said at the launch of the IBTS’s 2004 report.

To ensure blood was available for emergencies the IBTS asked hospitals to postpone elective surgery for three days in June.

IBTS national medical director Dr William Murphy said it would probably be impossible to ensure a sufficient supply of blood by paying people to donate and the people who donate altruistically would give up.

He said people who donate for economic reasons tended to withhold information about themselves.

“You are more likely to get diseases that you cannot test for or cannot eradicate. A whole layer of protection will disappear if donations are paid for. So we won’t be doing it,” he stressed.

He said the IBTS would apply to the Irish Medicines Board for permission to conduct a clinical trial on new filters that “quite possibly” removes variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD) from red cells.