Blood donor slump leads to recruitment drive at universities

Photo / Paul Estcourt

The number of new blood donors has slumped by nearly 20 per cent, creating anxiety over the future of the life-saving service and prompting a campaign to recruit more young donors.

More than 42,000 people a year need blood or blood products for their health care, necessitating the collection of 3000 donations a week.

The number of new donors signing up was stable at more than 21,000 a year for three years. But in the past 12 months the number reached only just over 17,000.

The service says it has 90,000 people who donate at least once a year.

But the loss of active donors through factors such as ageing (the maximum age for existing donors is 71), exclusion because of a health condition, or people going overseas, exceeds the numbers of recruits and those reinstated after having lapsed for a time.

The overall tally of active donors is declining by about 1000 a year.

"We are okay now, but if this rate of attrition continues, in a few years we could be facing a blood supply crisis," said marketing manager Paul Hayes.

"We will have quite a void to fill in the years to come.

"We are therefore looking for potential new donors between 18 and 30 in particular to step forward."

As part of this, the Blood Service was about to start a new campaign in universities to attract more donors.

Less than 5 per cent of the whole population and just 3 per cent of university students are donors.

Mr Hayes said two-thirds of donors were aged over 30 and "a big chunk" were 45 to 60, which was causing anxiety as the age structure of the database of active donors increased.

The average donor gave blood 1.7 times a year, but the frequency rose to more than 2.5 donations a year for those in their 50s.

"Our older generation are fantastic donors," said Mr Hayes, gesturing to donor Les Fleming, aged 57, of Orakei, the Auckland Museum's chief financial officer.

At the New Zealand Blood Service in Epsom, Mr Fleming was connected to a machine which was removing plasma from his blood before returning the red blood cells to his body.

It was his 66th donation. He started when he was 18.

His latest donation was his first time giving plasma, rather than the usual whole-blood donation.

"There's always that sense of satisfaction once you've given blood - just giving something back," Mr Fleming said.

The Slump:

* More than 21,000 donors signed up a year from 2006 to 2008.

* Just over 17,000 signed up in the past 12 months.

* Today is World Blood Donor Day.

For information on donating blood: 0800 448 325 or nzblood.co.nz