Article 3 of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Standards on Assessing Donor Suitability for Blood Donation (捐血者健康標準) states that people should wait at least two months between donations of 250ml and at least three months for those giving 500ml.
However, it also says that men should give a maximum of 1,500ml per year and women should give a maximum of 1,000ml. In other words, when a donor has reached the limit for annual blood donations, even if they waited the required interval between them, they would still have to wait until after their next birthday before giving blood.
The Taiwan Blood Services Foundation says the limits to the amount of blood people can donate is set out of a concern for donors’ iron levels. When a man has donated 2,000ml blood, he might have lost 1,000mg iron and needs time to replenish it.
However, regular blood donors have a good idea about how to look after their bodily health. If donors judge that there is no problem with their health, as long as they have fulfilled the three-month waiting period, they should be allowed to donate another 500ml.
Besides, Taiwan has become an aged society. The population of young people is falling, and there are certain restrictions as to who can donate blood. Under these conditions it will become more of a challenge to maintain a balance between supply and demand of blood.
If the limit on blood donations could be conditionally relaxed when the Taiwan Blood Services Foundation announces low stocks of blood or when there is a major disaster, such as last week’s Taroko Express train crash, it would help meet an urgent demand for blood.
This small adjustment to the rules would enable many regular blood donors to roll up their sleeves and give blood when it is most needed.
Fu Yen-wen is an aircraft dispatcher.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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