“Have you finished filling out your questionnaire sir? You can follow me for the interview…“It looks like a completely classic blood collection, except that Joëlle Guyot, who will conduct the interview before the donation, is not a doctor, but a nurse.
>> Blood donation: “We are reaching levels that are close to the alert level”, alarms the president of the French Blood Establishment
With the Covid and teleworking, the French are less present in the usual places of collection, such as companies, universities, and therefore give less. Result: the French Blood Establishment must organize more blood collections, and for this, it has multiplied, for two years, collections without the presence of a doctor.
This is the case here, at Neuilly-sur-Seine. The reason is the lack of personnel. “I have seen people who have been doctors for years retiring, others whose spouses have been transferred… They therefore have to be replaced and the whole problem is there in the recruitment of doctors“, details Joëlle Guyot.
She therefore underwent training, with other nurses, and now manages the collection. And the donors see nothing wrong with it: “It’s the first time, but there is no difference for us. It’s just questions they ask us, the tension that’s taken. There is no need for a doctor to be present, says a young woman. “If we trusted them during the Covid to provide care, there is no reason for them to be less competent today: there is no problem”, says another.
In the event of a question or a particular case, the nurses can contact a doctor present on another collection by telephone. Without their physical presence, it is the possibility of multiplying collections in times of blood shortage: “To approach the summer serenely, we would need 30,000 blood donations. It’s a lot“, specified Joëlle Guyot, who will therefore ensure two blood collections with the presence of a doctor, and four in autonomy, this week.