Three countries in Latin America are a global example in blood donation without remuneration

Every two seconds a person needs blood in the world but plasma banks globally do not have enough reserves to meet the demand. This scourge forces hundreds of patients, especially in undeveloped countries, to resort to illicit markets to acquire donations, putting even more at risk the life they are trying to save.

Leer en español: Donar sangre: Un debate entre el negocio y la urgencia

This situation has kept open the debate on the need to establish a specific remuneration that can encourage the collection of blood.

However, there are positions in favor and against this postulate. Those who oppose argue that paying blood donation will decrease the number of people who do so voluntarily. On the other hand, those that support the initiative, indicate that the remuneration increases the number of donors and blocks the illicit market that is formed around the sale of plasma.

According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), 112 million units of blood are collected every year, enough to fill 43 Olympic swimming pools; however, this amount is still minimal compared to the demand. To deal with the situation, some institutions have proposed to handle economic incentives for donors such as tax deductions, cards with money, and public transport tickets, but not all cities or people agree with this exchange.

Money in exchange for life

Mario Macis, an economist and professor at Johns Hopkins University, explained during an interview with the chain NTN24, a theory of psychology which indicates that giving back in an economic or symbolic way a work that is usually done without compensation, would decrease the number of individuals who come to do it voluntarily.

Although there are no precise statistics that can corroborate this theory, previous studies have shown that when applying incentives for blood donors in places like Argentina, Italy, and Switzerland, an increase in the number of donors was observed.

Also read: Is Latin America ready to fight against the illegal trafficking of people?

Nevertheless, these incentives arouse the concern of organizations such as the WHO, which assure that remuneration could encourage people to lie about their medical history and donate contaminated blood not for the purpose of helping but for the compensation they receive in return.

Only Canada, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, and USA allow plasma donors to be remunerated. In USA a blood donor can receive up to 5,000 dollars a year for his plasma and it is believed that this modality has allowed the northern nation to be the only country in the world that can cover its internal blood demand.

The popularity of plasma compensation offered by the US is so great to the donors that every week hundreds of Mexicans cross the US border to donate blood in exchange for between 50 and 70 dollars that they receive for a bag of blood in the medical centers that are located in the border area.

Latin America, example for the world

According to figures from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia top the list of the nations with the largest number of voluntary donations in the region. WHO data show that in Latin America and the Caribbean, 44.33% of blood donations are made voluntarily. The 55.73% is collected by replacement, or the cases where an individual decides to donate blood for a relative that requires it. Only 0.04% is acquired through paid donation.

The low plasma donation figure for compensation may be due to the few compensation methods that are used in the region, since it has been proven that the most vulnerable economies resort to these methods in case of unemployment or shortages.

Under this scenario, compensating donors financially becomes a problem with several edges. On the one hand, there are thousands of lives that are not saved every year for lack of blood; on the other hand, the lack of incentives for potential donors, with remunerations that would probably be paid by patients with the increase in costs that would represent acquiring plasma. All ethical dilemmas that arise when putting a monetary value on an element as vital as blood.

Latin American Post | Krishna Jaramillo
Translated from “Donar sangre: Un debate entre el negocio y la urgencia”