The Israeli National Blood Services is a division of the non-profit organization Magen David Adom (MDA), which is responsible for the collection, processing, testing and distribution of blood units and blood products throughout the country. It includes the central Blood Bank, which was inaugurated in 1987, and the Fractionation plant - inaugurated in 1996.
The center is located in Tel-Hashomer, (15 minutes drive from Tel-Aviv, and 45 minutes from Jerusalem), and employs around 220 workers, as laboratory technicians and phlebotomists.
Over 280,000 blood units are collected yearly from non-paid volunteers: 90% of which are collected using MDA Mobil Units in schools, factories, community centers and army camps. The other 10% are collected in fixed - sites donor rooms at MDA first-aid stations located in towns and cities all over Israel.
All the volunteers blood donors are offered the MDA-Blood-Insurance program, which grants further credit of blood for the donor and his/her immediate family members for 1 year following the donation. This credit saves the donors the need to bring "replacement-units" in case they would need transfusion during the 12 months following their blood donation.
Over 95% of the units collected each day are processed into components such as packed red blood cells, fresh frozen plasma, cryoprecipitate and platelets.
All donations are tested for blood type (ABO, Rh) and for the detection of irregular antibodies to red cell antigens. In addition all units are tested to identify transfusion - transmitted diseases such as Hepatitis B, C, HIV 1/2, HTLV and Syphilis.
In addition units are also tested for ALT levels.
Around 250,000 blood units and another 250,000 units of the different components are supplied to all the hospitals in Israel, upon their request.
In addition, some 37,000 liters of surplus plasma are supplied to MDA Plasma Fractionation Center, a modern, high-tech, state-of-the art pharmaceutical plant, for the preparation of albumin, gamma-globulin, factor VIII and other products.
Additional tasks of MDA Blood Services include:
a) A Hemapheresis service which collects platelets concentrates and plasma donations from single donors.
This unit is also in charge of performing therapeutic plasma exchanges, either "in- house", or in the different hospitals, using mobile pheresis machines.
b) The Israeli National Blood Group Reference Laboratory - a reference laboratory which supports the hospitals' blood-banks, trying to solve and diagnose cases of patients with unidentified antibodies or rare blood
subtypes and to provide them with blood units from the regular or frozen-units inventar.
c) Reference laboratory for further identification and diagnosis of viral liver diseases.
d) The national public cord blood bank, responsible for the collection, testing and storage of stem cell units for the benefit f patients who need them for transplantation.
e) The senior staff of the Blood Services is involved in the following activities:
1) Teaching transfusion medicine in the faculties of Medicine in Tel-Aviv
and Ben Gurion universities.
2) Different committees, consulting the Ministry of Health in issues
concerning blood safety, transfusion-medicine policy, etc.
3) Professional international consultations on blood services organization
and operation (i.e. Chile, Uruguay, Kosovo, China).
f) MDA Blood Services research and development laboratories are involved in projects such as the implementation of novel methods for the use blood products as future therapeutic means, and in the development of new and safer systems for the collection of blood samples from the donors.
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