The Minister of Health welcomed, on the occasion of World Day, the organization of blood collections and distributions in France, and called for the mobilization of all.
It is a French pride. The blood collection and bag redistribution system is functioning well in the country. Visiting this Wednesday at the Maison du don de Trinité (9th arrondissement in Paris), on the occasion of World Blood Donor Day, the Minister of Health reminded us. “I was talking to my American counterpart, who envied us this centralized system. It’s a disaster in the United States, where each hospital organizes its own donation ”.
Every day in France, 10,000 donations are collected, analyzed and transfused in order to meet the needs of patients. Suffice to say that the organization by the EFS (Etablissement Français du Sang) of samples and redistribution is a particularly meticulous management and that the management of stocks must be irreproachable. A threat hangs in particular on the donations collected: the expiration of blood bags whose lifespan is five days for platelets and 42 days for red blood cells.
Centralized organization
“This means that a platelet taken on Monday must be transfused on Friday, the last deadline,” underlined François Hébert, Deputy Director General of the EFS in charge of strategy, risks and external relations. The establishment, because it is integrated and united, can organize this. “
In fact, the EFS is the sole civilian operator of blood transfusion in France. It has a monopoly on blood collection, preparation of blood products and their distribution to health establishments.
This organization has proven itself, especially in times of an influx of donations. After the November 2015 attacks, a collective outpouring of generosity caused donations to explode by 280%. “We were able to manage this influx and very few pockets were expired, whereas during similar events in the United States, or after cyclones, they expired a lot of pockets because of their non-centralized system.”
Non-autonomous regions
In the end, the French system makes it possible to achieve one of the lowest rate of expiry of donations, established at around 0.05% – ten times less than in the United States, according to scientific work mentioned during this visit.
This inventory management is all the more essential since all the regions of French territory are not self-sufficient. Île-de-France, the PACA region, Martinique and Guadeloupe need donations collected in other regions. The pockets sometimes make long journeys by plane, which requires impeccable logistics. “Reunion had stopped the blood collections because of chikungunya in 2005-2006, but it was able to resume and it is now self-sufficient for the island as well as for Mayotte – but the growth in demand for blood products is very strong”.
A functional system, therefore, but which would be nothing without the generosity of donors. As needs do not weaken, their mobilization remains necessary and even more so in these summer periods when donations are scarce.
Agnes Buzyn, health Minister : ” These blood products cannot be replaced by drugs… We are concerned about the ability to maintain sufficient stocks.“
The minister will give her own blood this summer, she promised. “I am an excellent donor of platelets, I have very good antibodies against hepatitis B,” smiled this hepatologist by profession. I have worked in departments that used these gifts, I know how necessary they are. “
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