Magen David Adom (MDA) National Blood Services is responsible for the collection, processing, testing and distribution of blood units and components to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and to all hospitals in the country. Blood is collected in drives conducted nationwide in work places, community centers, army camps, high-schools, and at MDA stations. Currently 290,000 blood units are collected yearly - all from non-paid volunteers: 90% of the units are collected using MDA mobile units, and the other 10% are collected in the fixed - sites donor rooms at MDA stations located all over Israel.
Blood donated by the civilian sector constitutes 77% of all the units collected, while the other 23% are donated by the army.
Blood collected at drives in high-schools, constitutes 5.6% of the total units. This is usually the first time a young person is exposed to the new experience of volunteer blood donation, and is therefore "used" by MDA blood services teams as a great opportunity to educate young people to donate to the community, care for their own health, as well as for that of other human beings.
About 17% of the blood is collected in the 2 and 4 beds -contained vehicles, the use of which facilitate the daily work of the blood recruitment system.
According to Israeli official publications, the population in Israel has already reached 7 million inhabitants in 2007, and will be growing in the coming years. To ensure self-sufficiency in the supply of blood and blood components 5% of the population has to donate blood yearly. Serious efforts and substantial resources should be invested to educate the population to donate blood, recruit new donors and maintain these faithful volunteers.
MDA blood services intend to open a "call -center" (Teledam) which will operate, to try and recruit about 1,000 new and known blood donors daily. This is desperately needed in order to maintain an un-interrupted blood supply to all the patients, who need this treatment to save their lives.
The annual operating costs of such center will be about 750,000US$. |
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