“We are reaching levels that are close to the alert level”, is alarmed Tuesday, June 14 on franceinfo François Toujas, president of the French Blood Establishment. Stocks of blood bags in France have fallen to around 80,000, whereas 110,000 are needed in reserve to ensure continuity of care. Late spring, a usually unfavorable period for collection, the Covid-19 epidemic and teleworking “have had strong consequences and increased seasonal fluctuations”, he explained. On this World Blood Donor Day, François Toujas calls “to mobilize all potential donors”.
>> Blood supplies at their lowest: eight questions around the drop in donations
franceinfo: Have you ever experienced such difficult situations?
Francois Toujas: There are more favorable periods and others less favorable. Late spring is a relatively unfavorable period. What is true, on the other hand, is that we are reaching levels that are close to the alert level since this morning we still have barely 80,000 blood bags in reserve, whereas to function correctly or calmly, there should be around 100,000 blood bags. At the beginning of the year, we experienced a historically low threshold of 70,000 pockets. There is therefore a combination of both structural causes, spring is not actually a favorable period, but also economic causes linked to the epidemic situation which has greatly re-examined our collection capacity.
Concretely, what are the consequences of an insufficient stock?
The risk is very simple. We donate blood because the sick need it. For these patients, the ability to find other types of care other than blood is not possible and therefore not having enough blood would have the consequence of caring for fewer patients.
“It takes 10,000 blood donations a day to take care of all the patients.”
François Toujas, President of the French Blood Establishmentat franceinfo
What are the economic reasons?
From our point of view, the consequences of the epidemic crisis are not over. It was more difficult to mobilize donors who, for some, were sick, especially with the latest wave of Omicron. And then, the second element is that with telework, the closure of universities, the closure of schools, we have deployed fewer collections since we have sometimes had a third of collections less. These elements had strong consequences and increased the seasonal fluctuations that we usually know.
Should more awareness campaigns be launched?
There are regular campaigns. We are launching a pretty nice campaign for the next three weeks on the fact that when you are a blood donor, you are also a caregiver, you participate in the chain of care. It is an important element. The second thing, I am very sensitive about this, we need to be more in schools because young people are the future of blood donation.
“30% of donors are under 30. This means that blood donation speaks to young people.”
Francois Toujasat franceinfo
It is also this generation that we must be able to come and get, we must bring it in and above all make it loyal. This is the issue of our current campaign.
What goals are you giving yourself in the coming weeks?
Our goal is to reach approximately 110,000 blood bags in reserve before July 14 because summer is a time when people give less and unfortunately illnesses do not take vacations and therefore care or continuity of care absolutely indeed requires us to increase sharply. I call for the mobilization of all potential donors so that we can spend a peaceful summer.