World Blood Donor Day - President McAleese hosts special event in Áras an Uachtaráin

The IBTS, today (World Blood Donor Day - Saturday 14th June) celebrated World Blood Donor Day with President Mary McAleese at a very special event. The President is hosting a reception at Áras an Uachtaráin for over 150 donors, recipients, clinicians, representatives of the Irish Cancer Society, the Irish Heart Foundation and the Irish Kidney Association, as well as representatives from the Northern Ireland Blood Service.  

President McAleese said: "My very special thanks to the IBTS staff led by Chief Executive, Andrew Kelly and the National Medical Director, Dr William Murphy and the Board chaired by Maura McGrath.  You carry a formidable burden of responsibility and accountability.  This is a remarkable and much-needed, much-used public service with an uplifting story to tell of many thousands of men, women and children whose lives you helped to transform for the better.

"It is a service that has known other days too that brought deep heartache and sadness.  You carry all those stories in the deepening reservoir of distilled experience.  They set your agenda of uncompromising excellence, of relentless care and eternal vigilance.  I wish you every success as you ally the very best of scholarship and science to the very best of human nature."

IBTS Chief Executive Andrew Kelly said that much of modern medicine could not happen without the availability of a consistent blood supply. "This can only be achieved through community involvement at many levels. These linkages are vital if patients in hospitals are to receive the blood they require when they need it. Giving blood is a truly altruistic act and blood donors feel good for having done it. Today's event is an acknowledgement of that great act of giving and how it touches so many people's lives.

"Blood Transfusion Services depend on cross community support to make that 'Gift of Life' available for those in need.   World Blood Donor Day is about recognising internationally that voluntary unremunerated donors are the cornerstone of a safe blood supply.  Here, over the summer months, we are continually challenged to meet hospital demand as schools are closed and many people are on holidays or about to go on holidays, which is why we ask people to give blood before they go abroad."

ENDS

Note to editors

The first World Blood Donor Day was in 2005 to promote the concept of voluntary, unremunerated blood donation world wide.  Over 80 million units of blood are given every year, but only 38% of these are collected in developing countries where 82% of the global population lives.  Many countries are dependent on donation by families or friends of patients who require blood and in some countries, blood donors are still paid.  

In low-income countries, women and children are the groups with the greatest need for blood.  More than half a million women die each year from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth worldwide - 99% of them in developing countries.  Haemorrhage, accounting for 25% of complications, is the most common cause of maternal death.  Up to 70% of all blood transfusions in Africa are given to children with severe anaemia due to malaria, which accounts for one in five of all childhood deaths in Africa.  Worldwide, the day is sponsored by the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, International Society of Blood Transfusion and by the World Health Organisation to raise awareness for blood donation and to celebrate and thank those individuals who voluntarily donate their blood without any reward, except the knowledge that they have helped to save lives.

The theme of World Blood Donor Day 2008 is "Giving Blood Regularly"