On the 14th June countries come together to celebrate World Blood Donor Day. Each year 112.5 million blood donations are collected around the world and for 57 of these countries, 100% of their blood donations come from voluntary, unpaid blood donors.1
World Blood Donor Day is organised by the World Health Organisation and acts as a thank you to voluntary blood donors for their life-saving donations of blood. The day also aims to raise further awareness about the need for regular blood donations to save lives.
This years’ theme focuses on encouraging blood donation as an action of solidarity, with the slogan: “Be there for someone else. Give blood. Share life”. The campaign aims to highlight how giving blood can save lives and help to keep people in good health.
Table of Contents
Donating Blood Around The World
Blood donations save millions of lives around the globe every year. Donated blood can be used to help patients suffering from life-threatening conditions to live a better quality of live and support medical and surgical procedures. For many countries around the world, there is a real issue supplying enough blood to meet demand.
Out of the 112.5 million units of donated blood collected each year, almost 50% of these donations are made in high-income countries. There is a real issue ensuring that there is enough safe blood available in lower income countries around the world, where 80% of the global population live.
Collecting the blood is a major problem for a number of low income countries, but so is ensuring that the blood donated is safe. All donated blood should be screened for infectious diseases such as HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. However, there are at least 35 countries that do not have the facilities in place to screen all donated blood for these infections.
This can lead to patients being treated with infected blood and shows why further investment is needed, particular in low income countries, to make sure that safe procedures are in place for donating blood.
How To Dispose of Sharps Safely
It is important to provide safe facilities for people to donate blood, but it is equally important to have the correct procedures in place to dispose of used needles safely and responsibly. Safe sharps disposal facilities need to be provided to ensure that no-one comes to any harm as a result of contact with used needles.
When it comes to ensuring the safe disposal of sharps it is worth seeking professional advice. Citron Hygiene specialise in safe sharps disposal and provide a range of sharps disposal units designed to safely and securely hold used needles until disposal.
Every sharps disposal unit from Citron Hygiene is fitted with a self-locking final closure and conform to British safety standards and legislation. Needles used for blood donations are classified as contaminated waste, meaning an appropriate sharps bin must be used.
Citron Hygiene also offer a ‘Safer Sharp System’, which is compatible with all needle types and has an easy to use mechanism meaning, when not in use, the needle is protected at all times by a lockable sleeve. The anaesthetic cartridge is changeable during procedures. In addition, there is a choice of aspiration techniques and inSafe incorporates a fully autoclaveable syringe. The weight and feel is just like a conventional syringe.
The inSafe system has been extensively tested, is fully reliable and ensures the care provider is fully in control of the procedure, meaning there is no compromise to patient care.
Safe Blood Donations
Increasing the number of people willing to voluntarily donate blood is extremely important, but if the correct procedures are not in place to safely dispose of used needles, then this can pose a health and safety risk to anyone who comes into contact with these sharps.
If you would like more information on how to safely dispose of sharps, then please contact a member of our expert team who will be happy to answer your questions.
