Health officials in the Valencia region, and many other locations across the country, have embarked on a recent drive to encourage people to give blood.
The current campaign rightly points out that when you donate blood, you are carrying out a very personal act of solidarity with a direct impact on the health of other people.
At the moment, hospitals need approximately 650 daily donations to produce more than 900 blood components (red blood cell concentrate, plasma and platelets) requested, on any given day, by the different hospitals in the region.
However, there are still a large group of people who are banned from giving blood, including many Brits.
When you register to give blood, a questionnaire asks many questions to check your eligibility, mostly about your health situation, but one of the question still asks, “Have you spent more than 12 months (continuous or not) in the UK between 1980-1996?”
This has been a long-standing situation, and so, this week, The Leader contacted the health department to see if the situation has changed, to which the reply is quite simply that the bad still exists, nor is there seemingly any intention to remove it.
If, however, you are eligible, and are interesting in giving blood, thus potentially saving countless lives, you can get more information from Valencia´s own blood donation portal, at https://centro-transfusion.san.gva.es/
