I’ve had a little of a debate with a commenter recently where they’ve argued that “donating” (selling, in their words, because you can get money for it) your blood plasma is a scam because it’s for-profit and you’re being exploited.
Now, I only have my German lense to look at this, but I’ve been under the impression that donating blood, plasma, thrombocytes, bone marrow, whatever, is a good thing because you can help an individual in need. I get that, in the case of blood plasma, the companies paying people for their donations must make some kind of profit off that, else they wouldn’t be able to afford paying around 25€ per donation. But I’m not sure if I’d call that a scam. People are all-around, usually, too selfish and self-centered to do things out of the goodness of their hearts, so offering some form of compensation seems like a good idea to me.
In the past, I’ve had my local hospital call me asking for a blood donation, for example, because of an upcoming surgery of a hospitalised kid that shares my blood group. I got money for that too.
What are your guys’ thoughts on the matter? Should it be on donation-basis only and cut out all incentives - monetary or otherwise? Is it fine to get some form of compensation for the donation?
Very curious to see what you think
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Anytime we ask questions about poor people doing things to make a buck, you probably won’t find me talking negatively or blaming the people with few to no options.
I’ve been in a financial situation where selling my blood plasma was an easy, safe, guaranteed amount of money that kept me from getting deeper into the hole. I’m not going to knock anyone who does it, only the shitty social services that fail people to the point they have to sell their plasma to survive.
I’ve been there myself too. I didn’t necessarily have to donate plasma twice a week for a couple months since I could have asked my parents for money, but I’m very reluctant when it comes to asking for money and want to do things independently, on my own as far as possible. So yea, while between jobs, I was reliant on this steady source of income to be able to afford rent. It sucks but that’s reality. And yea, I quite agree that this is an underlying systematic failure of the government and not necessarily a fault of the blood bank
I think that the commenter lives in a country with for-profit hospitals. In Europe hospitals get subsidized so they all make good money and aren’t driven to pursue profits. Prices are being kept low because of taxes and social health care. There are some for profit hospitals, but not many.
Yea, US
I’ve donated plenty of times, because it makes sense that there is no other way to save lives than to donate.
On the other hand, I’ve been wondering for years, that while I’ve been told a million times that “blood reserves are low - donate blood now!”, I’ve not ever heard that a single person died due to lack of available blood.
Why would something like that not be reported if you want to motivate people to donate?My personal guess is that this comes because “lack of avaiable blood donations” isn’t a valid cause of death, the cause of death is whatever else (gun shot wound, knife severed artery / complication during surgery etc), thus it’s hard to pinpoint. Also Doctors may try to “save” blood, when they know little is available, and people may die that may have lived if they had gotten (more) blood, but also they may not have and it is hard to tell.
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@kurcatovium@lemm.ee
Donating blood/plasma is a good thing. Economic conditions in which poor people feel obligated to give blood just to make enough money, whilst rich people don’t feel this same pressure, are bad.
I don’t know how exactly private blood banks work (in plenty of countries blood banks are public and presumably non-profit), but regardless, I assume nobody can get blood transfusions if nobody donates. So until the political system is overhauled just keep donating? Your blood donations aren’t the root cause of capitalism
I’m not allowed to give blood since I’m gay and have an active sex life
It’s fucking discriminatory in my opinion and it has always made me uncomfortable filling out the blood donation paperwork.
We can reliably screen for HIV (all blood donations are) why the fuck are homosexuals discriminated against over this.
We can reliably screen for HIV (all blood donations are) why the fuck are homosexuals discriminated against over this.
except that the tests are (per cdc) up to 90 days late in detection. So you may get infected and spend 3 months testing negative.
And judging by OPs being german, where the rule (admittedly only since 2021) is “you may only have fucked one guy for the last 4 months”, this seems like being on the safe side, but not completely excessive to me.
I donate plasma regularly - at least once per month. It’s illegal to pay people for blood or plasma here in the Netherlands so I’m just in it for the good feels. I also like the downtime and relaxed chatting and joking with the people who work there.
The same worries exist here too though. The blood bank isn’t allowed to pay you for your plasma, but it’s absolutely a for-profit organisation that runs on selling your plasma to pharmaceutical companies.
I still believe it’s a good thing to donate, but sometimes it feels a little icky that there’s also a businessmodel around it
youguysgetpaid.jpg ?
Here if you go donate you get a sandwich and a day off work
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TBH most people I know don’t actually take the whole day, we’ve all got too much shit to do at work.
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Getting a flat rate compensation of expense isn’t really selling though. I think thats a bit too polemical.
In the UK it’s illegal to pay blood or plasma donors, and I think the only time we’ve had a shortage is due to a cyber attack.
I think they do give you a medal or something after donating a certain number of times though.
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You lack the cultural lens of America. About half of our country governs from the perspective of “why should I?” with the most negative and self-preserving mindset possible.
Why should I pay for others healthcare, even if it means they pay for mine? Why should I donate my blood if it doesn’t benefit me?
Solve that problem by giving you $25-100 for your “donations”
As someone from the US i always saw it as people can’t afford to take time off to donate, so compensating them for their time makes it so they can afford to donate.
A few states make it illegal to be monetarily compensated for your blood or plasma, but others it’s completely fine.
I’m sure.its a bit of that too, but I do feel like the ultimate reason is still, “well why are you taking time off to do something that isn’t only benefitting you?”
basically the same mindset that created this culture is what developed compensation for our time, as opposed to just taking the loss for the day to do a good thing.
That’s a fair assessment, and I can definitely agree with that
When people start getting paid for their blood, overall quality of the blood in such country suffers.
