They don't pay money so people don't have an incentive to lie on their donation form. When you donate there are a lot of things on the questionnaire form that will exclude you from donating (recent tattoos, travel to certain countries, have you used drugs, sex life related ones etc) and they don't want people lying about those things just for some money.
This was the problem with the HIV infected blood that was bought from America by the NHS. Lots of people were infected because it wasn't screened properly
The blood wasn't checked before being given to people. It's one of the reasons that there are so many checks now. Lots of people died without ever getting compensation for it
If I got infected with HIV last week, and donated next week, I would pass the virus on through the donation.
HIV isn't detectable until the virus has had a sufficient opportunity to replicate. The mindset of ‘they test it anyway’ is misguided and dangerous.
Organ donators are tested beforehand as you would expect, however transplants often get removed after detection of a communicable disease.
That’s NQR. The pre-donation questionnaire and interview is the primary check for blood to be released to patients. The tests post-donation are a double-check. Given the short shelf-life of some blood products (platelets lasts 5 days), they have to release product before test results come back.
They already do that. The questionnaire is to a) save them on costs, but b) to weed out risky blood that will have been contaminated too recently to show up on the blood screen.
HIV takes quite a while to show up as an example. If you contracted it today, it'd be a few weeks before it reliably shows up on blood tests. That's why sharps injuries have 2 blood tests, and you're not cleared until after the second test.
The general rule they take is looking at how long is the longest they've seen for it to show up, I believe in HIV's case it's 6 weeks. Then they double that, hence I believe activities that risk HIV infection are at 3 months.
They also pass some products on to patients before they're cleared of full blood work.
They screen in batches. So if one persons blood in the batch is bad, the whole lot gets disposed. Potentially, they could then be forced to dispose of more blood than they currently receive.
They have to spend time documenting where blood comes from with each donor.
Mad cow anyone?
It's about having a product put into other human bodies tracked and audited, not only for known risks, but for potential future issues. Sometimes years later.
Pay or not, they need to document. Truth or lie, same.
Lessons have been learned.
You are correct. They have to.
There are also heaps of medical conditions that mean you can't donate blood purely because nobody knows what causes the condition. Since an unknown virus or contagion can't be ruled out, we're not allowed to donate. Having chronic health conditions can be expensive, so I'm sure people would lie on their forms and just not mention their conditions if they thought they could get paid and get away with it.
we already buy from countries that pay its citizens. Half our immunoglobin supply is imported and it costs us almos half a billion a year on that alone.
Australia has close to if not the safest blood supply in the world, we're up there in terms of quality, we take it insanely seriously. We do test all blood, as far as I'm aware so do the US. The issue is with the perverse incentive that paying for blood creates, where people will lie about their situation to ensure they can donate and get paid.
Tests don't pick up pathogens within a certain period of time, depending on the pathogen. HIV is one of the worst for this, where it takes weeks to show up in tests. So we rely on screening people at risk of contracting HIV, and screen out anyone at risk of having contracted it recently. Screening doesn't replace the testing, we still test the blood for HIV, but screening greatly helps to reduce the risk of transmission. Paying people to donate incentivises them to lie in those screens, making the screening significantly less effective.
The testing is also not 100% effective. It is well over 99% effective, but false negatives do occur, so the safer the blood supply is pre-testing, the safer it is after.
My last plasma donation they told me that Poland gives out extra days of annual leave in exchange for donations, which I thought was a pretty great concept albeit only helps a certain cohort
My mum got a text that her blood was being used by someone who had been in a car accident down the coast. She was SO excited that her blood was able to help.
You get paid in sausage rolls and milkshakes!
Also it means you get a better quality of blood supply because people are donating because they want to not because they have to.
I doubt we import much at all whole blood wise. It doesn't keep long even when carefully temp controlled.
I would imagine we are importing the synthetic replacements pharmacies are coming up with.
Last post about this I saw showed how much we import:
https://www.blood.gov.au/supply-system/suppliers-and-commercial-supply-contracts/imported-product-supply
https://theconversation.com/how-australia-can-fix-the-market-for-plasma-and-save-millions-101609
Actually, I read the article I grabbed those numbers from its an op-ed arguing for payment here, so I don't know how reputable or unbiased that is.
When I first saw it, I was mostly skimming search results.
I don't have strong opinions either way, I didn't even know importing was a thing at all until op mentioned it.
If I find something I trust more, I'll report back with it.
It's purely for "blood products", stuff like what CSL makes here from plasma that we don't make or don't make enough of. We don't import any fresh stuff afaik, or at least it'd be veeeeery limited and due to specific circumstances rather than supply.
Every donor center is different, milkshakes and vending coffee machines are less common than usual snacks like chips, biscuits, meat pies and sausage rolls.
I donated plasma today and they had party pies and sausage rolls. Plenty of different drinks. Fruitcake. Cheese and biccies. Sweet biccies. Coffee. And as they were unable to put my red blood cells back or do the saline, I was encouraged to take more with me for the trip home.
Sadly that hasn't been for decades though. Well, at least at the mobile one I go to. There you get a couple of biscuits and and instant coffee/tea/juice. (Chips are hit or miss.) No hot food.
Sausage rolls and milkshakes? WTF. All I get in NZ is biscuits and coffee. Pretty good biscuits and coffee, but I would still prefer sausages and milkshakes.
I always have to miss out on the free sausage rolls and milkshakes...
I'm always underweight (edit: for their req.), so could never donate.
I've tried reaching their weight req, but 50kg seemed impossible for me.
I live in Japan now, where people are much smaller on average. Women need to be above 40kg, and men above 45kg to donate 200mL. Anyone over 50kg can donate 400mL. I don't know why they don't offer the same kind of thing in Australia.
Yeah they complain about not enough people donating but then don't accommodate for short and smaller adults. Like a lot of women weigh around 50 kg, it is easy to suddenly not be eligible.
They should make a smaller bag option, one standard size and one smaller size.
When you give blood, plasma or platelets, there is a large medical form that you fill in.
To ensure the quality of the donation.
If people were paid, they would lie on the form to get paid, this making it more likely that 'bad' things get into the blood.
As a regular donor, I am more than happy to do it for free.
Also it takes nearly 2 hours to donate plasma. How much are people going to get paid for that 2 hours ? Min wage ? Even then it's $50 a donation, will get expensive fast.
Nearly 2 hours? My last plasma donation (5 days ago) took no longer than 60 minutes including walking in, questionnaire and the quick interview pre donation.
Donation #14 and keen for more!
You were probably better hydrated than they were. This can add a bit of time to a plasma donation. Also, the questions and finger prick can take a while if the office is busy.
Mostly I’d assume they were just rounding the time out after taking 45 mins for a pie and coffee.
I did it a couple of months ago and it was 2 hours from walking in the door to walking out. I'm happy to be able to donate (finally, I'm a Brit and the ban was only recently lifted) but 2 hours is a lot of time to have to find. The majority of my donations will just be whole blood from now on.
I’m up to my 122nd and mine is an average of 45min donation, 5min for forms, and 10min for the nurse interview and BP and form checks. It definitely varies on a variety of reasons for each, I have taken nearly two hours to complete before, due to the needle insertion, the weather and my hydration levels.
I don’t think we need to be paid for it, but they should be allowing people’s sexual preferences to be dropped (currently a man who has sex with another man, or a woman who’s slept with a man who has slept with another man, cannot donate).
Except I guilt myself into limiting my snacks when the volunteers are there because I don’t want them to judge me.
They are lovely, but I have anxiety. I just want cake and pies and popcorn AND A coffee
Some donor centres have signs politely reminding people to not fill up their own bags or take more than two meat pies, but if it's at the end of the night and they're closing and they are gonna throw out the hot food, might as well take whatever. But generally still, you've given life from donating and you shouldn't feel bad for being a bit greedy with the food since you've donated and that's way more valuable.
My local now has someone guarding the snacks and you have to ask for them and be given the treats.
Made me kinda lose interest in going. Not that I can't easily get my own snacks it's more so the anxiety.
Use to only take a sausage roll, can of drink and 3x cookies but now I feel judged 😅
Maybe donating blood should not be a paid thing, but maybe offer a reward.
Donate x times a year and : you don’t have to pay the full Medicare rebate?
Or an additional discount on Private Health insurance
Or totally free GP visits
Or a free dental check up
A further discount on your Rates / Rego / childcare / etc
The person donating can pick a reward that suits their needs.
I dunno, I feel this is isn't any different to monetary compensation and isn't really in the control of the donor. I get regularly turned away for donations due to low haemoglobin (I do everything I'm supposed to, but females are often prone to it anyway and the results are usually borderline).
The forms and tests screen out large cohorts of the population for the sake of safety, which is entirely reasonable, but the costs of healthcare disproportionately affect those least likely to fit into the "safe" category for donation. These incentives are still money at the end of the day, and if anyone budgeted for these with the increased CoL, many would be pissed they weren't able to access them for whatever reason... and again many would lie on the forms.
Absolutely
A bunch of health conditions prevent people from donating and it isn't really fair to those who would if they could, but legitimately can't. I too am one of those and would love free GP visits...
The shortage is more due to availability of places to donate. If there were more times available to donate, more people could donate.
If we wanted to offer other perks, we could give donors some free health screening while they are there, like cholesterol screening, blood sugar etc. Perks that aren't money.
This is a big one. I want to donate but getting a suitable time slot to do is a nightmare. Donating blood destroys my energy levels so when I’m in my competitive season I donate less and then there is the wait times after getting tattoos also makes it a challenge.
free snacks is enough for me, my veins just don’t cooperate with the suction and stop supply after one bag is filled, and I’m one failed donation away from being banned because of it.
Yeah you have to book a bit in advance and if something comes up last minute you have to reschedule for another few weeks time. It’s not the easiest to navigate
A lot of people donate for the free iron level check. I honestly think if there were more free health metrics available as options, more people would be encouraged to donate.
We could start by not being dicks to gay people in monogamous relationships.
Gay people are often cleaner and better tested for STIs than other people.
It's illegal to pay for human tissue in Australia & you can only be reimbursed for verifiable expenses like travel & parking.
If you pay people for blood, sperm, eggs, embryos then you're going to attract people who need a quick $ & this can increase risk of exploitation, with vulnerable people being forced to donate. It can also lead to a reduction in quality as people might be inclined to lie about their medical history to get some of that sweet sweet money!
It's better for all concerned that we don't pay people for blood, sperm, eggs, embryos etc
I like the idea of financial compensation for bone marrow transplants. Few people are matches, so I'd rather half the population signs up for (free) screening with the hope they become a match and get $$$. I don't think the risks are as high.
I agree, I don't think it should be monetised. The risk to vulnerable people is something people rarely think about that I think is really important.
Tbf though, in my experience, most of the Australian sperm donors were men in their 40s and there is actually some degradation at that age lol so there is some reduction in quality anyway. And it's not cheap either.
finally someone talking about the potential for exploitation and the ethical conundrum attached to paying someone for any sort of organic material from their body.
Ex blood bank employee here and without getting too far into the politics, in my humble opinion:
Plasma - Yes. Plasma is sent to CSL Behring for processing to produce all kinds of good stuff for those in need but at a hefty price because it is a publicly traded company and runs on a for-profit basis. Plasma donors are essentially donating to line the pockets of shareholders. But, if donors got paid, would this cost get handballed onto the sick and needy?
Whole blood and platelets - No.
Just want to pipe in as I often do when I see transfusions discussed. If you're young, particularly a young man under 35, please consider joining the bone marrow registry. You can do it with a cheek swab mailed to you that you swab and chuck back in the post. The vast majority of donors will never be called up to donate but it's important we have as many people on the list as possible, especially as great an ethnic diversity as possible to give people the best matches possible.
[link to join ](https://strengthtogive.org.au/)
Reply or PM me if you have any questions.
As for the OPs questions. It's questionable if paying for blood would actually increase our supply, if we are to maintain the same donor and patient safety that we do. Some countries have tried it and seen donations go down. In meta analysis of trials conducted around incentives there isn't really evidence for financial incentives increasing donations. It further incentives a private industry of blood donation that jacks up prices for health purposes. Why should collection company sell us that bag of blood for a transfusion for $500 when a cosmetic clinic will buy it for $5000? It incentivises desperate people to lie on the screening forms compromising our blood safety.
CSL and similar companies set up collection centres in the USA in poor neighbourhoods, with poor patient safety, and pays them bugger all for the amount of money they profit off that blood. I'm not sure that's a model we should be importing.
Context: former haematology doctor turned bush doctor.
https://www.health.gov.au/topics/blood-and-blood-products/blood-and-blood-products-in-australia
"We import some plasma-derived products and demonstrated effective blood product alternative (these are non-blood, non-plasma medicines) to make sure we can meet demand because:
not enough can be manufactured in Australia
the product is not manufactured in Australia."
I would prefer an encouragement scheme. Like every 10 donations you get shares in CSL.
I keep reading that paying people for donation increases the likelihood for people lying about their medical history. And that we are paying for blood from America.
There are plenty of plasma centers in the US where people are paid to donate ALL THE TIME.
What technologies are in place such that the Australian government deems US blood safe to import and use?
> And that we are paying for blood from America.
We're not important blood, we're importing blood products. If you went into the central distribution centre in your capital city, you'd find a few hundred to a few thousand red-blood bags, a few dozen platelets, and a big room full of plasma, which is basically the various components of blood spun out from each other.
You'd also find thousands of little medicine bottles in the fridge. Every day, particularly in Sydney but I think nationwide, we ship off plasma to CSL for them to turn into medicine, which they then send back to Lifeblood (the blood service), who then send it out to the hospitals that require it.
It's those medicines that we import, and they're referred to as "blood product", hence the confusion. We don't import red cells/platelets/plasma afaik. CSL simply can't make enough of some of those medicines, or don't make some specific ones at all.
We don't have enough blood, so we have to get it from somewhere.
If the alternative is no blood at all, it's better to import it from places that still have very good control measures in place, even if it's not quite as good as what we get in Australia.
Sorta. I think they should put a value on it but as a charitable donation so u can claim it off your taxes. Still incentives ppl to do it but possibly weeds out the smakies
1. Like others said, I think it's good to not give anyone an incentive to lie.
2. As with paid surrogacy, I am not in favour of creating a situation where people feel the need to sell their body parts out of financial desperation.
For those saying its to screen out the people lying wouldn't you just have a system in place that when they test the blood and something is found when they lied they wouldn't get paid and you'd only get paid after it's tested? Surely the time to test isn't more then buying from outside sources and the amount of good blood would also out weigh that. Plus you'd just put a mark on their card
Thanks for the info, I don't know much about blood infections and what not. So is it not possible to detect these types of infections before the blood becomes no good to use?
Once upon a time, the answer was a definite yes to your question. The tech has improved, and so for hiv for example, they can detect it earlier than this. But the general principle does remain that there is a window period between the onset of infection and it being detectable.
I have a medical condition that excludes me from donating but does not show up in blood work. There are others that only show up on very specific test.
Screening the blood is an important step but it can’t catch everything.
This would cause an immense amount of administrative work. Matching blood to people to their payments, we already don't have enough resources as it is. It also would probably create ethical issues. What happens if someone found out they had a blood borne disease they didn't know about because their blood got rejected and was traced back to them?
Wouldn't that be a good thing? Then that person can be informed they have it, make people sign something that they run the risk of if something is found unfortunately they won't be paid but will be informed they have said disease that way it's up to them before donation and nor like they lose anything other then time beside the strawberrie milk goes alright. As for admin and funding this is where if we actually cared about this issue we'd demand more funding goes towards it instead of the countless corrupt hand outs but that's a whole other issue, one that seems relatively easy to fix if governments cared
No. You do it because it's easy and it's a good thing to contribute to the world. The day we base everything in our lives on what's in it for us, is the day we fail as a society.
I used to donate regularly , now I'm older and have health problems , not allowed to donate any more , it's sad , getting paid would make no difference ,
Am a frequent donor (63 at last count) and I don't think paying is the right answer because it incentivises lying/people doing it for the wrong reasons. But there needs to be a partway solution, like maybe you only get paid after your 3rd donation (to make sure the person is serious about it, not just doing it for a quick buck) or from your 2nd donation per year. This means people are on record and they can screen the blood when it's completely voluntary.
Deposit into a super scheme? Vouchers from a sponsor? Random prizes?
I have thrombocytopenia so can’t donate but if money was offered and I was desperate for cash I’d be tempted to lie on the form. Can imagine those participating in risky drugs and sex would lie too.
I’ve donated blood and got free cheese and crackers. Years later I need blood, they charge me hundreds.
Why should it be considered worth less when I’m giving it up than when I need it.
If there was even something small like now that blood tests cost us, you get a free blood test per donation.
Get ads that are in your face and emotion provoking and at times almost give off the feeling they want you to feel guilty about situations not in your control to give part of yourself away.
by they I think it should be the government who forks out the $ or the $ to pay for whatever the outcome not Red Cross but that’s an unrealistic expectation I know. I believe majority of Red Cross workers would do what they do and help out others not dependant on $ but when businesspeople get involved that’s all it becomes and they are leaches who will take our blood just to see the numbers go up
Blood donation props up the poorest of Americans.
Not donating blood is a civil service to those people so they can be farmed like cattle for our needs.
The number of high profile blood bank scandal's that have occurred in Australia, and their subsequent cover ups by state and fed governments has not helped in any way!
Straight up cash incentive? Nah. But maybe a tax/Medicare/private health incentive if you hit an average donation milestone, say 75% of what you're eligible to donate in a year.
Being a long term incentive straight away excludes opportunistic donors and maintains the integrity of Australia blood supplies.
Here's the thing. You're most likely too young to remember when AIDS first reared its ugly head but paid blood donations played a huge part in its spread into the hetero population and heavily impacted the haemophiliac population in the US.
As always, blood was in high demand and paid donations became a way for drug addicts, sex workers, the homeless and others to score some (relatively) easy money. So there was zero incentive for them to declare intravenous drug use, unsafe sexual practices etc etc. And the donation centres at the time didn't know enough about transmission to screen them out adequately - blood screening was not an advanced science in the early days of AIDS. And you don't know what you don't know - if the donor doesn't declare it, you would never know in most cases.
The result was that HIV / AIDS took off like wildfire in the States, getting into the wider population and hitting haemophiliacs (who rely on the plasma product Factor 8) particularly hard. People were coming down with AIDS who had never had unsafe sex, had never taken drugs or shared a dirty needle. It was devastating.
Here in Australia, while AIDS claimed an appalling number of victims, it wasn't anything like as bad as the US as it didn't get into the wider blood transfusion system to the same extent. Lesson learned.
From personal experience I'd say the shortage is a combination of a large part of the population being ineligble to donate and then on top of that it's not an easy or accessible process for a lot of people. I've donated once, my blood came back as low on something, they asked me to get a blood test and and signed off by a doctor before I donated again - fair enough. Life got in the way, I didn't do that, forgot about it and lost the paperwork - again, that's on me, my bad.
But, then about a year later I tried to chase it. After jumping through multiple hoops on their website, I had to ring Lifeblood - I couldn't request the paperwork by online form/email - and they told me they would resend the paperwork. Well, they did not, it just never showed up.
Now I live rural so it's impossible to donate even if I was cleared. The nearest donation centre is an hour away, it's mobile so it's only open for a few days once every 2-3 months and its only ever weekdays 9-5. I'm can't take a whole day off work just to donate blood.
quality of blood is only one of the reasons that donation isn’t paid in australia, as all samples are tested for drugs and disease (at least by life blood). a more pressing ethical concern is the fact that being paid for donations inherently makes the act more appealing to people with less money, making lower class people donate blood at a higher rate. rich people would never be in a position where they would need to donate blood just to get by. it may seem like a small loss for a person who is giving blood, but the law stems from a wider ban on any compensation for all sorts of medical donations or services by civilians. you will also not be paid for any sort of organ donation, and commercial surrogacy is illegal in the country. this protects donators from exploitation and removes the potential for potentially life threatening actions being commercially driven.
it’s a lot more obvious why it is unethical to encourage people in need, even inadvertently, to donate their materials for money when it’s organs vs blood you’re talking about.
Quite a few studies have shown that giving a payment does not increase the number of donors. Sure, it might encourage some people but others may feel that the whole thing cheapens what they do. Rather than doing an altruistic thing you are now doing it to make some spare cash. The cash payment is unlikely to be worth many people's time. I like going in to give blood and feel like I'm giving something back to the community. It's a very friendly, positive environment. If I turn up and it's people just trying to make a buck I might not bother so frequently.
No I firmly stand behind been banned from paying for any product involving a human.
I mean people find loop holes. Like IVF give sperm for free but charge $$$ to defrost it.
But in general no, money shouldn't ever change hands for human parts.
I’m definitely in favour of it remaining unpaid. Here are some thinks Red Cross could think about to improve donor numbers.
1. Reinstate walk-ins. Yes for some people it’s nice to book in advance, but for others it’s not. For many years after they switched to book-in-advance I gave up going because it was just too unrealistic to book in advance when I was busy at work. I was dependent on having enough free time over lunch, and couldn’t be confident that would happen.
2. Local anaesthetic. Back in the 80s when I started donating, they would put local anaesthetic on before sticking the needle in. Then they stopped for some reason. Now it hurts a bit. I go out of duty, but don’t really enjoy it.
3. Milkshakes! These were always a big part of the attraction. The 2 donor centres I go to, Melbourne and Ringwood, both have milkshake machines, but donors are not allowed to use them, and there’s rarely anyone to help. I’m not about to ask the staff to stop sticking needles in other people’s arms in order to make me a milkshake. They should just let the donors use them.
4. Food. Yes, I like party pies, even the cheap frozen ones they now serve. But I’m a dinosaur. I think most people nowadays prefer a different healthier class of snack.
5. Ethnic groups. Could be coincidence, but whenever I go, the donors are predominantly white. Makes me wonder what the Red Cross is doing to inculcate a sense of duty to donate among other ethnic groups.
1) You can book 15min in advance if there’s slots free (pretty much same as walk in?) and go in early for the paperwork
2) How interesting, like a topical cream or patch? I’m guessing they might not as they ask if the site is painful
3) -5. Wholeheartedly agree. I’d feel rude asking for a milkshake and the food is (good) junk
If only they let us get paid to donate sperm, There would be a lot of full time professional wankers......and I'm not talking about real estate agents and lawyers....... ba doom tiss!!
Do we actually import blood or is it blood products that we don’t have capacity at certain times to make? I thought one of the issues with blood is that it doesn’t have a very long shelf life. Hence more issues at certain times, eg Christmas/New Year.
Also, if they made it less of a hassle to go and donate they’d probably have more donors. Maybe they ought to think about expanding the mobile program to go to places where they’ll find donors for whom going to a regular place is a hassle.
I remember back at Uni they’d have the mobile blood bank around at least twice a semester because uni students are a fairly good population for blood donation: generally young and healthy, somewhat flexible with time, and happy of donate blood for sausage rolls and a milkshake.
I donate and I don’t think it should need to be something you get paid to do. It doesn’t take long. Like others have said, more people would donate but people would lie and that costs money to test blood that people knew wouldn’t be eligible.
Maybe they can give Coles/Woolworths gift card as tokens instead of the milkshakes and sandwich even for $10. or Opal card credit for the trip to the blood bank.
They should have a smaller donation option (for people weighing around 55kg and below) to include more people. Having 50kg as minimum excludes a lot of women from donating. They can't complain and then do nothing to accommodate. Science should find a way to receive smaller donations.
Apparently Japan has 2 size options.
They should also have a system in place to make it as quick as possible. Sometimes it takes forever just to do a full blood donation. You cannot go in early to fill the form, they make you wait till your start time. Therefore, you're not actually donating at that time but rather 20 mins later.
I’d rather they spend that money on making it more accessible for us to do. I’d happily donate, there just isn’t a centre close enough to me that opens outside of work hours. Invest more in those travelling vans!
A lot of people are not eligible to donate. Gonna be hard to make it mandatory.
A lot of petite women are not allowed due to the high minimum weight. Anaemic people can't donate. Ppl with diabetes can't donate. Gay men aren't allowed to. A lot of ppl won't be able to. Anyone with blood related illnesses won't be able to.
Also if you take some medications. Even non blood diseases if they don’t know what causes it (like MS) they play it safe and say people are ineligible.
People also get paid to donate eggs in other countries too, but like giving blood, it's altruistic. People do it because it's a kind and giving thing to do. I think monetizing it will cause more problems.
I think so.
It requires time, effort transport costs and pain leading to you providing a necessary and in demand product.
These things are typically compensated with a financial payment in the rest of society, so why not here too?
Sure you could argue ineligible people might try to sneak through, but testing should continue to be rigorous enough to filter these cases out anyway.
No payment for blood donations is ethically necessary to prevent poor people from being exploited by the wealthy. It's the same as living organ donation, or surrogacy in Australia the exchange of money for this is illegal to prevent exploration of the poor.
If you're being paid then it's not a donation, it's a sale.
I am categorically 100% against people receiving any kind of monetary compensation for their blood. (And I believe exactly the same way for organ donations.)
> there is not enough blood to go around and Australia needs to import from other countries who offer payment
Why do you believe this is true? Where did you get that information from?
From my own super-quick less-than-5-minute research, Australia is generally self-sufficient in its blood supply. What we do apparently import are blood-derived products - things that are not made here, or are not made here in sufficient quantity.
You should donate because you're a good person, not because you get paid for it.
You do get paid for it indirectly, though, if your employer is cool with it. Plasma donation takes about 45-60 min. Do that once a fortnight.
This doesn't work the way you think it does. The blood donation and plasma centers in America are usually overrun by mentally ill or drug addicts. They give you like 80$ every few days if you come in. It does not attract the people you think it will.
100% - this is how a lot of hemophiliacs (and other people who require regular blood products) in the UK were infected with Hep B/Hep C/HIV in the 80s/90s
We.... already have that lol. We import a huge portion of blood products from oversease, where presumably many get financial compensation for donating.
So, the choices are 1) Cost-effective local blood with financial compensation that potentially leads to dodgy donations. 2) Pricey imported blood with financially compensated donors that potentially leads to dogy donations.
To clarify: the US does not allow payment for whole blood donations, but private companies can (and do) pay for plasma donations. Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are the other countries that allow payment for plasma.
In the States it’s not without controversy and questionable ethics as it can prey on people who need the cash (eg: collection facilities are often set up at/near universities, and they’re all over Mexican border where people cross, donate, and take home US dollars to supplement their income).
I honestly feel we should start paying. It would get more people interested.
I'm a stem cell donor, but because I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia I can't donate blood
If they made the process easier, I'd donate blood. I tried to book myself and couldn't find a place/date/time that worked so after like an hour of trying to figure it out I gave up! I keep meaning to redo it, but my life is busy and I forget.
Even if I was getting $10, that wouldn't really make me more likely to be doing it right now. All monetizing it does is take advantage of people with no money.
How about they just provide places to donate blood? I had to stop donating when I left the capital city - the nearest donation centre is hours away now
Most places give you food, like a sausage roll and a milkshake or something akin. Which imo is fair compensation for doing your mate a favour, which is what I feel donating blood should be viewed as.
Part with a bit of blood now so old mate can have a bit (or a lot) of blood when they need it, and for looking out for old mate they grab you a feed
I donate to give back personally my late husband did chemo for a couple of years and plasma is required for cancer patients
It’s a win win I get a delicious sausage roll and chocolate milk I also take 2 hours out of work time (volunteer time) every fortnight now that hubby can’t take care of the kids on the weekend
By the way I read that donating plasma regularly reduces the amount of PFAS (microplastics) from your body with I found interesting but to be honest I like the chocolate milk
I literally just got back from donating. I don't believe it should be paid. The cookies, sausage rolls and party pies is payment enough. Also, the juice box.
I'm up for my 53rd whole blood donation next week. I'm not sure if I would have donated if it was for money - I certainly wouldn't have donated any more.
They don't pay money so people don't have an incentive to lie on their donation form. When you donate there are a lot of things on the questionnaire form that will exclude you from donating (recent tattoos, travel to certain countries, have you used drugs, sex life related ones etc) and they don't want people lying about those things just for some money.
This. You'd have every HIV infected smackhead lining up to give blood.
This was the problem with the HIV infected blood that was bought from America by the NHS. Lots of people were infected because it wasn't screened properly
Not ''a lot". The detection is a lot more sophisticated now. There will awake be some risk but the benefit outweighs the risk
The blood wasn't checked before being given to people. It's one of the reasons that there are so many checks now. Lots of people died without ever getting compensation for it
The scandal happened between 1970 and 1990. Hiv was discovered in 1983. People were infected because the virus was brand new.
I mean the screen the blood so people wouldn't get sick but that all costs money and time.
They already do that anyway.
If I got infected with HIV last week, and donated next week, I would pass the virus on through the donation. HIV isn't detectable until the virus has had a sufficient opportunity to replicate. The mindset of ‘they test it anyway’ is misguided and dangerous. Organ donators are tested beforehand as you would expect, however transplants often get removed after detection of a communicable disease.
That’s NQR. The pre-donation questionnaire and interview is the primary check for blood to be released to patients. The tests post-donation are a double-check. Given the short shelf-life of some blood products (platelets lasts 5 days), they have to release product before test results come back.
Damn not safe then
They already do that. The questionnaire is to a) save them on costs, but b) to weed out risky blood that will have been contaminated too recently to show up on the blood screen. HIV takes quite a while to show up as an example. If you contracted it today, it'd be a few weeks before it reliably shows up on blood tests. That's why sharps injuries have 2 blood tests, and you're not cleared until after the second test. The general rule they take is looking at how long is the longest they've seen for it to show up, I believe in HIV's case it's 6 weeks. Then they double that, hence I believe activities that risk HIV infection are at 3 months. They also pass some products on to patients before they're cleared of full blood work.
They screen in batches. So if one persons blood in the batch is bad, the whole lot gets disposed. Potentially, they could then be forced to dispose of more blood than they currently receive.
This is not true at all. Each donation is screened individually. There is no 'bad' batch.
They have to spend time documenting where blood comes from with each donor. Mad cow anyone? It's about having a product put into other human bodies tracked and audited, not only for known risks, but for potential future issues. Sometimes years later. Pay or not, they need to document. Truth or lie, same. Lessons have been learned. You are correct. They have to.
Exactly. And testing for HIV and Hep C is costly.
There are also heaps of medical conditions that mean you can't donate blood purely because nobody knows what causes the condition. Since an unknown virus or contagion can't be ruled out, we're not allowed to donate. Having chronic health conditions can be expensive, so I'm sure people would lie on their forms and just not mention their conditions if they thought they could get paid and get away with it.
we already buy from countries that pay its citizens. Half our immunoglobin supply is imported and it costs us almos half a billion a year on that alone.
Surely there’s some other benefit that would work though. A small amount less tax, for example.
Then how do blood companies in the US and Europe deal with this problem?
The US in particular has a less safe blood supply because of this issue.
This is concerning. Are there any statistics about blood supply safety? Why isn’t all blood tested by default?
Australia has close to if not the safest blood supply in the world, we're up there in terms of quality, we take it insanely seriously. We do test all blood, as far as I'm aware so do the US. The issue is with the perverse incentive that paying for blood creates, where people will lie about their situation to ensure they can donate and get paid. Tests don't pick up pathogens within a certain period of time, depending on the pathogen. HIV is one of the worst for this, where it takes weeks to show up in tests. So we rely on screening people at risk of contracting HIV, and screen out anyone at risk of having contracted it recently. Screening doesn't replace the testing, we still test the blood for HIV, but screening greatly helps to reduce the risk of transmission. Paying people to donate incentivises them to lie in those screens, making the screening significantly less effective. The testing is also not 100% effective. It is well over 99% effective, but false negatives do occur, so the safer the blood supply is pre-testing, the safer it is after.
That would cost a fortune and would be a huge backlog for everything. It would also spill over elsewhere for regular tests.
All blood is tested. But they pool donations to reduce costs.
They do test it mate.
My last plasma donation they told me that Poland gives out extra days of annual leave in exchange for donations, which I thought was a pretty great concept albeit only helps a certain cohort
You get paid back if you ever need blood.
My mum got a text that her blood was being used by someone who had been in a car accident down the coast. She was SO excited that her blood was able to help.
Yes! I was thrilled when they first started texting to say where your blood was being used.
Is this commonplace? I think people would be more inclined to donate if they were told that their blood saved someone.
You get paid in sausage rolls and milkshakes! Also it means you get a better quality of blood supply because people are donating because they want to not because they have to.
Except if we are importing, then you don't. As we're getting the same supply as the other countries that pay.
I doubt we import much at all whole blood wise. It doesn't keep long even when carefully temp controlled. I would imagine we are importing the synthetic replacements pharmacies are coming up with.
Last post about this I saw showed how much we import: https://www.blood.gov.au/supply-system/suppliers-and-commercial-supply-contracts/imported-product-supply https://theconversation.com/how-australia-can-fix-the-market-for-plasma-and-save-millions-101609
Googling suggests we import up to 44% of supply spending 120 million a year to do so
I can't find a link that splits out whole blood from blood products. Do you have one?
Actually, I read the article I grabbed those numbers from its an op-ed arguing for payment here, so I don't know how reputable or unbiased that is. When I first saw it, I was mostly skimming search results. I don't have strong opinions either way, I didn't even know importing was a thing at all until op mentioned it. If I find something I trust more, I'll report back with it.
It's purely for "blood products", stuff like what CSL makes here from plasma that we don't make or don't make enough of. We don't import any fresh stuff afaik, or at least it'd be veeeeery limited and due to specific circumstances rather than supply.
Yeah that's what I was thinking. Whole blood is pretty temperamental.
That’s plasma, specifically the product made from plasma called IVIg, as Australia is one of the highest users of this product per capita.
There are sausage rolls and milkshakes? Shit where do I sign up? 😎
Through the app or online! They usually encourage you to load up on snacks. Iced coffee, chocolate, biscuits, chips, etc
Every donor center is different, milkshakes and vending coffee machines are less common than usual snacks like chips, biscuits, meat pies and sausage rolls.
I donated plasma today and they had party pies and sausage rolls. Plenty of different drinks. Fruitcake. Cheese and biccies. Sweet biccies. Coffee. And as they were unable to put my red blood cells back or do the saline, I was encouraged to take more with me for the trip home.
In SA you used to get a beer if you wanted it !
Yeah definitely never seem them here in NSW lol
Sadly that hasn't been for decades though. Well, at least at the mobile one I go to. There you get a couple of biscuits and and instant coffee/tea/juice. (Chips are hit or miss.) No hot food.
Sausage rolls and milkshakes? WTF. All I get in NZ is biscuits and coffee. Pretty good biscuits and coffee, but I would still prefer sausages and milkshakes.
...or an couple of Arnotts biscuits and a cup of Nescafe/Lipton if you are regional and have to wait for a Mobile unit to visit.
Exactly. Have you tried drinking homeless people blood? Tastes weird.
I always have to miss out on the free sausage rolls and milkshakes... I'm always underweight (edit: for their req.), so could never donate. I've tried reaching their weight req, but 50kg seemed impossible for me.
I live in Japan now, where people are much smaller on average. Women need to be above 40kg, and men above 45kg to donate 200mL. Anyone over 50kg can donate 400mL. I don't know why they don't offer the same kind of thing in Australia.
Yeah they complain about not enough people donating but then don't accommodate for short and smaller adults. Like a lot of women weigh around 50 kg, it is easy to suddenly not be eligible. They should make a smaller bag option, one standard size and one smaller size.
Iron deficiencies are much more common in women than men and that is a contributor.
it doesn't mean anything because we import blood from international sources that pay people. We have a shortage.
Getting paid with junk food 🙈
When you give blood, plasma or platelets, there is a large medical form that you fill in. To ensure the quality of the donation. If people were paid, they would lie on the form to get paid, this making it more likely that 'bad' things get into the blood. As a regular donor, I am more than happy to do it for free. Also it takes nearly 2 hours to donate plasma. How much are people going to get paid for that 2 hours ? Min wage ? Even then it's $50 a donation, will get expensive fast.
Nearly 2 hours? My last plasma donation (5 days ago) took no longer than 60 minutes including walking in, questionnaire and the quick interview pre donation. Donation #14 and keen for more!
You were probably better hydrated than they were. This can add a bit of time to a plasma donation. Also, the questions and finger prick can take a while if the office is busy. Mostly I’d assume they were just rounding the time out after taking 45 mins for a pie and coffee.
I only discovered recently that drinking a lot of water the day _before_ donation - not just on the day itself - makes a big difference.
I did it a couple of months ago and it was 2 hours from walking in the door to walking out. I'm happy to be able to donate (finally, I'm a Brit and the ban was only recently lifted) but 2 hours is a lot of time to have to find. The majority of my donations will just be whole blood from now on.
I've had to wait over 30 minutes (past my booked time) to even get the finger prick before.
I have been speeding through the last few plasma donations. Under 30 for the actual donation part.
I’m up to my 122nd and mine is an average of 45min donation, 5min for forms, and 10min for the nurse interview and BP and form checks. It definitely varies on a variety of reasons for each, I have taken nearly two hours to complete before, due to the needle insertion, the weather and my hydration levels. I don’t think we need to be paid for it, but they should be allowing people’s sexual preferences to be dropped (currently a man who has sex with another man, or a woman who’s slept with a man who has slept with another man, cannot donate).
Still cheaper than paying 600 a pop for one bag of blood from America. Hurts our trade deficit also .?
I’m a plasma donator and it definitely doesn’t take two hours. Maybe an hour from entering to exiting. I still agree with your sentiment though
I don't know. They're pretty generous with the snacks and have you seen how much they cost these days??!
Except I guilt myself into limiting my snacks when the volunteers are there because I don’t want them to judge me. They are lovely, but I have anxiety. I just want cake and pies and popcorn AND A coffee
Some donor centres have signs politely reminding people to not fill up their own bags or take more than two meat pies, but if it's at the end of the night and they're closing and they are gonna throw out the hot food, might as well take whatever. But generally still, you've given life from donating and you shouldn't feel bad for being a bit greedy with the food since you've donated and that's way more valuable.
My local now has someone guarding the snacks and you have to ask for them and be given the treats. Made me kinda lose interest in going. Not that I can't easily get my own snacks it's more so the anxiety. Use to only take a sausage roll, can of drink and 3x cookies but now I feel judged 😅
Maybe donating blood should not be a paid thing, but maybe offer a reward. Donate x times a year and : you don’t have to pay the full Medicare rebate? Or an additional discount on Private Health insurance Or totally free GP visits Or a free dental check up A further discount on your Rates / Rego / childcare / etc The person donating can pick a reward that suits their needs.
I dunno, I feel this is isn't any different to monetary compensation and isn't really in the control of the donor. I get regularly turned away for donations due to low haemoglobin (I do everything I'm supposed to, but females are often prone to it anyway and the results are usually borderline). The forms and tests screen out large cohorts of the population for the sake of safety, which is entirely reasonable, but the costs of healthcare disproportionately affect those least likely to fit into the "safe" category for donation. These incentives are still money at the end of the day, and if anyone budgeted for these with the increased CoL, many would be pissed they weren't able to access them for whatever reason... and again many would lie on the forms.
Absolutely A bunch of health conditions prevent people from donating and it isn't really fair to those who would if they could, but legitimately can't. I too am one of those and would love free GP visits...
Most of those things should be free anyway, and doesn't discriminate against people legitimately unable to donate blood.
A free dental would be awesome
It feels un-Australian to do a good deed and expect payment in return.
clearly it is Australian since we currently have a shortage so not enough people are doing it without financial incentive.
The shortage is more due to availability of places to donate. If there were more times available to donate, more people could donate. If we wanted to offer other perks, we could give donors some free health screening while they are there, like cholesterol screening, blood sugar etc. Perks that aren't money.
>we could give donors some free health screening while they are there, like cholesterol screening, blood sugar Yeah that'd be cool
This is a big one. I want to donate but getting a suitable time slot to do is a nightmare. Donating blood destroys my energy levels so when I’m in my competitive season I donate less and then there is the wait times after getting tattoos also makes it a challenge.
free snacks is enough for me, my veins just don’t cooperate with the suction and stop supply after one bag is filled, and I’m one failed donation away from being banned because of it.
When I was really broke I would look forward to my donation days because I knew I was getting a good feed haha. So worth
Yeah you have to book a bit in advance and if something comes up last minute you have to reschedule for another few weeks time. It’s not the easiest to navigate
Well we do get our blood pressure and iron levels checked, which is more than non-donors are likely to get on a regular basis.
A lot of people donate for the free iron level check. I honestly think if there were more free health metrics available as options, more people would be encouraged to donate.
And there’s better ways to incentivise people than getting every crack head clogging up the system trying to get paid
We could start by not being dicks to gay people in monogamous relationships. Gay people are often cleaner and better tested for STIs than other people.
Didn't they recently retract their gay man clause?
Yeah unless you've had sex. Which of course is bullshit if you're in a monogamous committed relationship and test more often than straight people do.
As of last year, you are allowed to donate as a gay man as long as you haven't had sex with a male in 12 months
Like with all Australian adults, there are probably few that have been celibate for the past 12 months 😭
It's illegal to pay for human tissue in Australia & you can only be reimbursed for verifiable expenses like travel & parking. If you pay people for blood, sperm, eggs, embryos then you're going to attract people who need a quick $ & this can increase risk of exploitation, with vulnerable people being forced to donate. It can also lead to a reduction in quality as people might be inclined to lie about their medical history to get some of that sweet sweet money! It's better for all concerned that we don't pay people for blood, sperm, eggs, embryos etc
I like the idea of financial compensation for bone marrow transplants. Few people are matches, so I'd rather half the population signs up for (free) screening with the hope they become a match and get $$$. I don't think the risks are as high.
I agree, I don't think it should be monetised. The risk to vulnerable people is something people rarely think about that I think is really important. Tbf though, in my experience, most of the Australian sperm donors were men in their 40s and there is actually some degradation at that age lol so there is some reduction in quality anyway. And it's not cheap either.
finally someone talking about the potential for exploitation and the ethical conundrum attached to paying someone for any sort of organic material from their body.
I get why we don't get paid for it but it sure would be nice
No but you should get pto for it
This is a really good idea! I'm sure there are office workers who would take a needle and a cookie over their 3pm sales meeting.
My work gives pto for it and it’s great, I do it after I leave so it feels like an extra hour off that day
Victorian public service awards allow for it.
I negotiate enterprise agreements and so many of them have this in it - you know why? Cause no one uses it!
Ex blood bank employee here and without getting too far into the politics, in my humble opinion: Plasma - Yes. Plasma is sent to CSL Behring for processing to produce all kinds of good stuff for those in need but at a hefty price because it is a publicly traded company and runs on a for-profit basis. Plasma donors are essentially donating to line the pockets of shareholders. But, if donors got paid, would this cost get handballed onto the sick and needy? Whole blood and platelets - No.
Just want to pipe in as I often do when I see transfusions discussed. If you're young, particularly a young man under 35, please consider joining the bone marrow registry. You can do it with a cheek swab mailed to you that you swab and chuck back in the post. The vast majority of donors will never be called up to donate but it's important we have as many people on the list as possible, especially as great an ethnic diversity as possible to give people the best matches possible. [link to join ](https://strengthtogive.org.au/) Reply or PM me if you have any questions. As for the OPs questions. It's questionable if paying for blood would actually increase our supply, if we are to maintain the same donor and patient safety that we do. Some countries have tried it and seen donations go down. In meta analysis of trials conducted around incentives there isn't really evidence for financial incentives increasing donations. It further incentives a private industry of blood donation that jacks up prices for health purposes. Why should collection company sell us that bag of blood for a transfusion for $500 when a cosmetic clinic will buy it for $5000? It incentivises desperate people to lie on the screening forms compromising our blood safety. CSL and similar companies set up collection centres in the USA in poor neighbourhoods, with poor patient safety, and pays them bugger all for the amount of money they profit off that blood. I'm not sure that's a model we should be importing. Context: former haematology doctor turned bush doctor.
***☝️This post needs about a zillion upvotes***
https://www.health.gov.au/topics/blood-and-blood-products/blood-and-blood-products-in-australia "We import some plasma-derived products and demonstrated effective blood product alternative (these are non-blood, non-plasma medicines) to make sure we can meet demand because: not enough can be manufactured in Australia the product is not manufactured in Australia." I would prefer an encouragement scheme. Like every 10 donations you get shares in CSL.
I keep reading that paying people for donation increases the likelihood for people lying about their medical history. And that we are paying for blood from America. There are plenty of plasma centers in the US where people are paid to donate ALL THE TIME. What technologies are in place such that the Australian government deems US blood safe to import and use?
> And that we are paying for blood from America. We're not important blood, we're importing blood products. If you went into the central distribution centre in your capital city, you'd find a few hundred to a few thousand red-blood bags, a few dozen platelets, and a big room full of plasma, which is basically the various components of blood spun out from each other. You'd also find thousands of little medicine bottles in the fridge. Every day, particularly in Sydney but I think nationwide, we ship off plasma to CSL for them to turn into medicine, which they then send back to Lifeblood (the blood service), who then send it out to the hospitals that require it. It's those medicines that we import, and they're referred to as "blood product", hence the confusion. We don't import red cells/platelets/plasma afaik. CSL simply can't make enough of some of those medicines, or don't make some specific ones at all.
Thank you. That makes sense
We don't have enough blood, so we have to get it from somewhere. If the alternative is no blood at all, it's better to import it from places that still have very good control measures in place, even if it's not quite as good as what we get in Australia.
Sorta. I think they should put a value on it but as a charitable donation so u can claim it off your taxes. Still incentives ppl to do it but possibly weeds out the smakies
I actually kind of like that idea! I can’t donate at the moment but it doesn’t feel quite as inequitable as some of the other suggestions.
1. Like others said, I think it's good to not give anyone an incentive to lie. 2. As with paid surrogacy, I am not in favour of creating a situation where people feel the need to sell their body parts out of financial desperation.
For those saying its to screen out the people lying wouldn't you just have a system in place that when they test the blood and something is found when they lied they wouldn't get paid and you'd only get paid after it's tested? Surely the time to test isn't more then buying from outside sources and the amount of good blood would also out weigh that. Plus you'd just put a mark on their card
There's a delay between recent infection and it appearing on tests - real possibly of blood borne transmission entering the blood supply.
Thanks for the info, I don't know much about blood infections and what not. So is it not possible to detect these types of infections before the blood becomes no good to use?
Once upon a time, the answer was a definite yes to your question. The tech has improved, and so for hiv for example, they can detect it earlier than this. But the general principle does remain that there is a window period between the onset of infection and it being detectable.
I have a medical condition that excludes me from donating but does not show up in blood work. There are others that only show up on very specific test. Screening the blood is an important step but it can’t catch everything.
This would cause an immense amount of administrative work. Matching blood to people to their payments, we already don't have enough resources as it is. It also would probably create ethical issues. What happens if someone found out they had a blood borne disease they didn't know about because their blood got rejected and was traced back to them?
Wouldn't that be a good thing? Then that person can be informed they have it, make people sign something that they run the risk of if something is found unfortunately they won't be paid but will be informed they have said disease that way it's up to them before donation and nor like they lose anything other then time beside the strawberrie milk goes alright. As for admin and funding this is where if we actually cared about this issue we'd demand more funding goes towards it instead of the countless corrupt hand outs but that's a whole other issue, one that seems relatively easy to fix if governments cared
No. You do it because it's easy and it's a good thing to contribute to the world. The day we base everything in our lives on what's in it for us, is the day we fail as a society.
I used to donate regularly , now I'm older and have health problems , not allowed to donate any more , it's sad , getting paid would make no difference ,
A tax deduction (consider it like a charity donation) would be a good way of giving back and weeding out the smackheads.
Am a frequent donor (63 at last count) and I don't think paying is the right answer because it incentivises lying/people doing it for the wrong reasons. But there needs to be a partway solution, like maybe you only get paid after your 3rd donation (to make sure the person is serious about it, not just doing it for a quick buck) or from your 2nd donation per year. This means people are on record and they can screen the blood when it's completely voluntary. Deposit into a super scheme? Vouchers from a sponsor? Random prizes?
I have thrombocytopenia so can’t donate but if money was offered and I was desperate for cash I’d be tempted to lie on the form. Can imagine those participating in risky drugs and sex would lie too.
I’ve donated blood and got free cheese and crackers. Years later I need blood, they charge me hundreds. Why should it be considered worth less when I’m giving it up than when I need it. If there was even something small like now that blood tests cost us, you get a free blood test per donation. Get ads that are in your face and emotion provoking and at times almost give off the feeling they want you to feel guilty about situations not in your control to give part of yourself away. by they I think it should be the government who forks out the $ or the $ to pay for whatever the outcome not Red Cross but that’s an unrealistic expectation I know. I believe majority of Red Cross workers would do what they do and help out others not dependant on $ but when businesspeople get involved that’s all it becomes and they are leaches who will take our blood just to see the numbers go up
Blood donation props up the poorest of Americans. Not donating blood is a civil service to those people so they can be farmed like cattle for our needs.
The number of high profile blood bank scandal's that have occurred in Australia, and their subsequent cover ups by state and fed governments has not helped in any way!
Straight up cash incentive? Nah. But maybe a tax/Medicare/private health incentive if you hit an average donation milestone, say 75% of what you're eligible to donate in a year. Being a long term incentive straight away excludes opportunistic donors and maintains the integrity of Australia blood supplies.
If you get paid, it won’t be a donation. It’s getting paid for blood. Let’s not call it donation.
Here's the thing. You're most likely too young to remember when AIDS first reared its ugly head but paid blood donations played a huge part in its spread into the hetero population and heavily impacted the haemophiliac population in the US. As always, blood was in high demand and paid donations became a way for drug addicts, sex workers, the homeless and others to score some (relatively) easy money. So there was zero incentive for them to declare intravenous drug use, unsafe sexual practices etc etc. And the donation centres at the time didn't know enough about transmission to screen them out adequately - blood screening was not an advanced science in the early days of AIDS. And you don't know what you don't know - if the donor doesn't declare it, you would never know in most cases. The result was that HIV / AIDS took off like wildfire in the States, getting into the wider population and hitting haemophiliacs (who rely on the plasma product Factor 8) particularly hard. People were coming down with AIDS who had never had unsafe sex, had never taken drugs or shared a dirty needle. It was devastating. Here in Australia, while AIDS claimed an appalling number of victims, it wasn't anything like as bad as the US as it didn't get into the wider blood transfusion system to the same extent. Lesson learned.
I think we are better having an opt out for organ donation.
From personal experience I'd say the shortage is a combination of a large part of the population being ineligble to donate and then on top of that it's not an easy or accessible process for a lot of people. I've donated once, my blood came back as low on something, they asked me to get a blood test and and signed off by a doctor before I donated again - fair enough. Life got in the way, I didn't do that, forgot about it and lost the paperwork - again, that's on me, my bad. But, then about a year later I tried to chase it. After jumping through multiple hoops on their website, I had to ring Lifeblood - I couldn't request the paperwork by online form/email - and they told me they would resend the paperwork. Well, they did not, it just never showed up. Now I live rural so it's impossible to donate even if I was cleared. The nearest donation centre is an hour away, it's mobile so it's only open for a few days once every 2-3 months and its only ever weekdays 9-5. I'm can't take a whole day off work just to donate blood.
quality of blood is only one of the reasons that donation isn’t paid in australia, as all samples are tested for drugs and disease (at least by life blood). a more pressing ethical concern is the fact that being paid for donations inherently makes the act more appealing to people with less money, making lower class people donate blood at a higher rate. rich people would never be in a position where they would need to donate blood just to get by. it may seem like a small loss for a person who is giving blood, but the law stems from a wider ban on any compensation for all sorts of medical donations or services by civilians. you will also not be paid for any sort of organ donation, and commercial surrogacy is illegal in the country. this protects donators from exploitation and removes the potential for potentially life threatening actions being commercially driven. it’s a lot more obvious why it is unethical to encourage people in need, even inadvertently, to donate their materials for money when it’s organs vs blood you’re talking about.
Quite a few studies have shown that giving a payment does not increase the number of donors. Sure, it might encourage some people but others may feel that the whole thing cheapens what they do. Rather than doing an altruistic thing you are now doing it to make some spare cash. The cash payment is unlikely to be worth many people's time. I like going in to give blood and feel like I'm giving something back to the community. It's a very friendly, positive environment. If I turn up and it's people just trying to make a buck I might not bother so frequently.
no. have you seen the blood rackets in the US that pay poor and homeless to give blood and plasma? disgraceful. Humanity should not be monetised.
I guess in part its because they don't want desperate people having to sell their blood to survive.
And they'd prefer desperate people have no options.
No I firmly stand behind been banned from paying for any product involving a human. I mean people find loop holes. Like IVF give sperm for free but charge $$$ to defrost it. But in general no, money shouldn't ever change hands for human parts.
I’m definitely in favour of it remaining unpaid. Here are some thinks Red Cross could think about to improve donor numbers. 1. Reinstate walk-ins. Yes for some people it’s nice to book in advance, but for others it’s not. For many years after they switched to book-in-advance I gave up going because it was just too unrealistic to book in advance when I was busy at work. I was dependent on having enough free time over lunch, and couldn’t be confident that would happen. 2. Local anaesthetic. Back in the 80s when I started donating, they would put local anaesthetic on before sticking the needle in. Then they stopped for some reason. Now it hurts a bit. I go out of duty, but don’t really enjoy it. 3. Milkshakes! These were always a big part of the attraction. The 2 donor centres I go to, Melbourne and Ringwood, both have milkshake machines, but donors are not allowed to use them, and there’s rarely anyone to help. I’m not about to ask the staff to stop sticking needles in other people’s arms in order to make me a milkshake. They should just let the donors use them. 4. Food. Yes, I like party pies, even the cheap frozen ones they now serve. But I’m a dinosaur. I think most people nowadays prefer a different healthier class of snack. 5. Ethnic groups. Could be coincidence, but whenever I go, the donors are predominantly white. Makes me wonder what the Red Cross is doing to inculcate a sense of duty to donate among other ethnic groups.
1) You can book 15min in advance if there’s slots free (pretty much same as walk in?) and go in early for the paperwork 2) How interesting, like a topical cream or patch? I’m guessing they might not as they ask if the site is painful 3) -5. Wholeheartedly agree. I’d feel rude asking for a milkshake and the food is (good) junk
Smash 20 sausage rolls and a Powerade . Ez
If only they let us get paid to donate sperm, There would be a lot of full time professional wankers......and I'm not talking about real estate agents and lawyers....... ba doom tiss!!
Do we actually import blood or is it blood products that we don’t have capacity at certain times to make? I thought one of the issues with blood is that it doesn’t have a very long shelf life. Hence more issues at certain times, eg Christmas/New Year. Also, if they made it less of a hassle to go and donate they’d probably have more donors. Maybe they ought to think about expanding the mobile program to go to places where they’ll find donors for whom going to a regular place is a hassle. I remember back at Uni they’d have the mobile blood bank around at least twice a semester because uni students are a fairly good population for blood donation: generally young and healthy, somewhat flexible with time, and happy of donate blood for sausage rolls and a milkshake.
What about a reduction in one's medicare levy for every time they donate?
I donate and I don’t think it should need to be something you get paid to do. It doesn’t take long. Like others have said, more people would donate but people would lie and that costs money to test blood that people knew wouldn’t be eligible.
Maybe they can give Coles/Woolworths gift card as tokens instead of the milkshakes and sandwich even for $10. or Opal card credit for the trip to the blood bank.
They should have a smaller donation option (for people weighing around 55kg and below) to include more people. Having 50kg as minimum excludes a lot of women from donating. They can't complain and then do nothing to accommodate. Science should find a way to receive smaller donations. Apparently Japan has 2 size options.
They should also have a system in place to make it as quick as possible. Sometimes it takes forever just to do a full blood donation. You cannot go in early to fill the form, they make you wait till your start time. Therefore, you're not actually donating at that time but rather 20 mins later.
"Paid to donate".
I’d rather they spend that money on making it more accessible for us to do. I’d happily donate, there just isn’t a centre close enough to me that opens outside of work hours. Invest more in those travelling vans!
They also scan your blood for free My cousin found a problem cos she donates
Should rephrase it to tax deduction instead of payments That’s way better
We shouldn't get paid. Also, I don't know if we gay guys are allowed to donate now. Such a shame cos I'm O negative.
I think that policy is under active review, but hasn't been changed yet.
Make it mandatory, like voting Or tap into the prison population
A lot of people are not eligible to donate. Gonna be hard to make it mandatory. A lot of petite women are not allowed due to the high minimum weight. Anaemic people can't donate. Ppl with diabetes can't donate. Gay men aren't allowed to. A lot of ppl won't be able to. Anyone with blood related illnesses won't be able to.
Also if you take some medications. Even non blood diseases if they don’t know what causes it (like MS) they play it safe and say people are ineligible.
Any bodily fluid or part is illegal to sell in Australia
People also get paid to donate eggs in other countries too, but like giving blood, it's altruistic. People do it because it's a kind and giving thing to do. I think monetizing it will cause more problems.
Because they don’t want incentives to lie on the form and they don’t want coercion or even force to be a factor.
I'm at work on my phone can someone link this dude the infected blood scandal going on in the UK atm.
Should be tax incentive, little bit for each donation
I think so. It requires time, effort transport costs and pain leading to you providing a necessary and in demand product. These things are typically compensated with a financial payment in the rest of society, so why not here too? Sure you could argue ineligible people might try to sneak through, but testing should continue to be rigorous enough to filter these cases out anyway.
I get paid in choccies, juice, muesli bars, and cheese and bikkies. I love it!
Not legal to get paid to donate blood in Aus!
No payment for blood donations is ethically necessary to prevent poor people from being exploited by the wealthy. It's the same as living organ donation, or surrogacy in Australia the exchange of money for this is illegal to prevent exploration of the poor.
If you're being paid then it's not a donation, it's a sale. I am categorically 100% against people receiving any kind of monetary compensation for their blood. (And I believe exactly the same way for organ donations.) > there is not enough blood to go around and Australia needs to import from other countries who offer payment Why do you believe this is true? Where did you get that information from? From my own super-quick less-than-5-minute research, Australia is generally self-sufficient in its blood supply. What we do apparently import are blood-derived products - things that are not made here, or are not made here in sufficient quantity.
You should donate because you're a good person, not because you get paid for it. You do get paid for it indirectly, though, if your employer is cool with it. Plasma donation takes about 45-60 min. Do that once a fortnight.
Yes!! I think we should, however if you lie on the form you should be fined.
This doesn't work the way you think it does. The blood donation and plasma centers in America are usually overrun by mentally ill or drug addicts. They give you like 80$ every few days if you come in. It does not attract the people you think it will.
100% - this is how a lot of hemophiliacs (and other people who require regular blood products) in the UK were infected with Hep B/Hep C/HIV in the 80s/90s
People were infected in Australia as well through blood donations.
Can you imagine how many people who are ineligible to donate would lie in the questionnaire to get some free money? That’s one of the reasons why.
Maybe temporarily if we had a sustained period of chronic/critical shortage and other methods of encouragement weren’t working
We.... already have that lol. We import a huge portion of blood products from oversease, where presumably many get financial compensation for donating. So, the choices are 1) Cost-effective local blood with financial compensation that potentially leads to dodgy donations. 2) Pricey imported blood with financially compensated donors that potentially leads to dogy donations.
To clarify: the US does not allow payment for whole blood donations, but private companies can (and do) pay for plasma donations. Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are the other countries that allow payment for plasma. In the States it’s not without controversy and questionable ethics as it can prey on people who need the cash (eg: collection facilities are often set up at/near universities, and they’re all over Mexican border where people cross, donate, and take home US dollars to supplement their income).
No. Would have the homeless being exploited way more than they already are.
I honestly feel we should start paying. It would get more people interested. I'm a stem cell donor, but because I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia I can't donate blood
You might want infected blood but nobody sane would agree with you.
No. As a lifetime donor it is part of the social contract in Australia
I've donated before and felt like shit after so i stopped donating. If I got paid I'd go back to donating
there's a lot of people in the covid conscious community who WANT to donate but can't/won't due to the lack of masks :(
I would be interested how much the usa insurance companies sell the blood on for
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Be there every second……$$$$
I’m happy with my chocolates and juice.
If they made the process easier, I'd donate blood. I tried to book myself and couldn't find a place/date/time that worked so after like an hour of trying to figure it out I gave up! I keep meaning to redo it, but my life is busy and I forget. Even if I was getting $10, that wouldn't really make me more likely to be doing it right now. All monetizing it does is take advantage of people with no money.
I don't think you should but I wish I could sell my kidney.
How about they just provide places to donate blood? I had to stop donating when I left the capital city - the nearest donation centre is hours away now
Most places give you food, like a sausage roll and a milkshake or something akin. Which imo is fair compensation for doing your mate a favour, which is what I feel donating blood should be viewed as. Part with a bit of blood now so old mate can have a bit (or a lot) of blood when they need it, and for looking out for old mate they grab you a feed
It should be an option. Many wouldn’t take it but many would
I agree with it being a tax initiative.
Yes, definitely
Not just blood and plasma, you can’t donate sperm for money either I think it’s generally “no money for body fluids”
I donate to give back personally my late husband did chemo for a couple of years and plasma is required for cancer patients It’s a win win I get a delicious sausage roll and chocolate milk I also take 2 hours out of work time (volunteer time) every fortnight now that hubby can’t take care of the kids on the weekend By the way I read that donating plasma regularly reduces the amount of PFAS (microplastics) from your body with I found interesting but to be honest I like the chocolate milk
I literally just got back from donating. I don't believe it should be paid. The cookies, sausage rolls and party pies is payment enough. Also, the juice box.
We only have the bus visit where I am and can’t donate plasma there. I wish I could.
I'm up for my 53rd whole blood donation next week. I'm not sure if I would have donated if it was for money - I certainly wouldn't have donated any more.
I like giving blood. The idea of doing it for money feels super gross, like rich people can suck the blood right out of you if they need it.