Following on from the blood collection campaigns that the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (FMUL) has carried out over recent years, the first blood collection campaign of 2010 was held on the 26th and 27th of May 2010, organized by the Portuguese Blood Institute (IPS).

The mission of the IPS is to regulate transfusional medicine on a national level and to guarantee the availability and accessibility of safe and efficient blood and quality blood components through benevolent donations among the healthy population.

The IPS also has the responsibility to develop computerised means of making the public aware of the permanent need for blood components and to publicise the aim of sustained increasing of donations in order to achieve the desired levels of sufficiency in blood, which is an important aim to be achieved on a national level and within the European Union.

Besides continuous support for many agents promoting blood donating, the IPS has regularly held campaigns on a national level, using the media and electronic networks, as well as other audiovisual and documental media, which have varied according to the time of year and have evolved according to the experience gained and in relation to the needs felt at each moment. These campaigns, which aim at making the public aware of this cause, take place in the periods when there is traditionally a greater lack of blood: the summer and Christmas/New Year periods.

National Blood Donor Day has been celebrated since 1986 on the 27th of March, thus revealing the recognition for the importance of the selfless contribution of Blood Donors towards the treatment of patients.

Since 2002 two campaigns per year have been held at the FMUL, in April/May and in November/December.

The campaigns have been various in numbers and have had greater visibility, thus contributing towards significantly reaching the aims that the IPS proposes to achieve in each campaign.

Over the last 8 years, the number of donors at the FMUL:

I – Number of donors in Blood Collection Campaigns at the FMUL

Considering that in 2010 only one campaign has taken place, in which 105 donors were received, it is predicted that at the end of this year, as in 2009, the number will be more than 200 donors.

On average, over the last seven years (2002-2009), 270 donors per year were registered.

In each campaign the FMUL attempts to use e-mails and posters on the premises to inform students and staff that another campaign is taking place in the Egas Moniz Building over two days and that in order to achieve its results it needs the collaboration of everyone, because in giving blood they are contributing towards saving one more life.

On the IPS page  you may consult all the available information about the campaigns taking place on a national level and may find answers to your doubts if you wish to contribute to help another life.

Give blood, for one life more!

Bibliography:
www.ipsangue.org

Carla Reis
carla.reis@campus.ul.pt
Egas Moniz Building Management Unit