“In the last 10 years there has been a big drop in access to blood donation” and “only 33% of women donate”. Furthermore, “we are losing young donors” and “we have lost 30% of doctors” who deal with transfusion medicine. Vanessa Agostini, director of the Transfusion Medicine Unit of the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa and responsible for coordinating transfusion activities in Liguria, described the picture, launching an appeal to the Government for the relaunch of the sector, on the occasion of the meeting on “Gender gap and women’s health” promoted in Rome by the Women Protagoniste in Sanità community.
For Agostini, “investing in awareness-raising and donation loyalty policies becomes essential through courses that must start within the school, so as to bring young people closer together and at the same time promote correct lifestyles. With just one course we can protect the health of donors and find new ones”.
We must also address the problem of the lack of doctors. “Transfusion medicine does not have a specialist training course, we have lost 30% of doctors compared to the pre-pandemic era”, explains Agostini. “Not having doctors who deal with transfusion medicine – he continues – means not being able to have training courses in schools, carry out promotion campaigns and awareness of donation with the support of associations and federations of voluntary blood donors and not being able to influence the use appropriate amount of blood components for transfusion support”.
Agostini then launched an appeal to the Government: “We need to re-evaluate the profession of transfusion medicine doctors, invest in human resources and specific projects through funding that does not rain down on all regions, but which is coordinated through the National Blood Center”. (HANDLE).
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