How to donate blood in Poland? Who cannot become a donor?

Donating blood is an extremely honorable attitude that has saved human lives more than once. Unfortunately, not everyone can become a donor. Many questions disqualify those who want to help people in need. The list of contraindications is really long.

Blood donation

The constant need for blood is a self-explanatory phenomenon. Is it an ingredient that we cannot get in the store like prescription medicine. For this reason, blood donation is a very desirable and glorious phenomenon that saves lives and gives hope for better times.

Blood donation is painless and carries no danger if the donor is healthy and meets strictly certain criteria. The three main ones are:

1. Age — full 1 years and up to 8 years;
2. weight — more than 50 kg;
3. state of health and medication — a healthy person who does not constantly take specific medications can become a blood donor.

In addition to the listed conditions, a person who does not struggle with mental illness and does not depend on any substances, such as alcohol or drugs, can become a blood donor.

1. The NFZ information line for cancer patients from Ukraine has started working

Who cannot donate blood?

Before making a decision to donate blood, it is worth finding out what things can become obstacles for a potential donor. Unfortunately, helping others is not always possible. There is a division into temporary and permanent disqualifications.

We speak of temporary disqualification when a specific situation excludes the possibility of donating blood and after a strictly defined time it becomes possible, and permanent disqualification, for example, when the state of health does not allow it. Who cannot donate blood? Let’s look at the situation in more detail.

Who cannot donate blood? Temporary contraindications to donating blood

To be sure that donating blood will serve the cause, you should read the list of temporary disqualifications. The presence of at least one of them can exclude the possibility of blood donation, and the time of future donation then depends on the specific situation. Who cannot donate blood temporarily? Below is a list of the most important temporary contraindications.

1. women during menstruation and three days after the end of menstruation;
2. dental patients, after tooth extraction (6-day disqualification, unless only the gum was sutured – then the disqualification includes six months), fillings (one-day delay) and root canal treatment (6-day disqualification);
3. people after endoscopic procedures such as arthroscopy, gastroscopy or colonoscopy (6 months);
4. persons who have had a tattoo or undergone a piercing procedure (6 months);
5. people who have been sick with COVID-19 (can be donors 14 days after the end of isolation);
6. patients after procedures and operations requiring skin disruption (6 months);
7. persons after long-term antibiotic therapy (2 weeks);
8. women after childbirth (6 months);
9. persons who suffered colds and flu, during the course of which the temperature was higher than 38 ° C (2 weeks);
10. persons after vaccination (time of disqualification for donating blood depends on the type of vaccine);
11. those who return from a country where there is a risk of infection with a tropical disease (6 months);
12. patients who fought osteomyelitis (2 years after treatment);
13. people who had toxoplasmosis (6 months after treatment);
14. people with herpes lips (2 weeks after treatment);
15. tourists returning from countries with an increased risk of AIDS infection (6 months after return);
16. tourists returning from countries with an increased risk of malaria infection, if they did not have symptoms and the results of the study are negative (4 months);
17. people who had malaria (3 years after the end of treatment);
18. people who had infectious mononucleosis (6 months after treatment);
19. persons who had close contact with patients infected with infectious diseases (if symptoms were not observed, a person can donate blood 4 weeks after the end of incubation of an infected person);
20. persons who have served their sentence in a closed institution (after 6 months after leaving prison);
21. people who had gonorrhea (one year after treatment);
22. patients who were in contact with someone else’s blood (6 months)

Who cannot donate blood? Permanent disqualifications

While temporary contraindications give hope of becoming a blood donor, permanent disqualifications completely remove illusions. When can you not donate blood to another person? If:

1. addiction — alcoholism and lecoholism;
2. diseases of the digestive, urinary, respiratory and nervous systems (including, first of all, people struggling with epilepsy, chronic diseases of the central nervous system and recurrent mental illnesses);
3. malignant tumors;
4. cardiovascular diseases (insufficiency of blood circulation, coronary disease or atherosclerosis);
5. some skin diseases, such as atherosclerosis;
6. infectious diseases — jaundice, Chagas fever, babesiosis, viral inflammation of the liver and hepatitis B and C;
7. employment in prostitution, frequent change of sexual partners;
8. belonging to groups that can potentially carry serious diseases (due to contact with blood, for example, belonging to a group of drug addicts);
9. combating mental disorders caused by taking psychoactive substances;
10. transplantation of tissues obtained from animals (so-called xenografts);
11. dura mater and cornea transplantation;
12. diseases: syphilis, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or risk of TSE (spongiform encephalitis);
13. systemic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus erythematosus (collagenosis).

In addition to the listed contraindications to donating blood, there are other disqualifying factors due to the duration and year of treatment or stay outside the country, namely:

1. blood transfusion after January 1, 1980 in Ireland, France and Great Britain;
2. taking hormone injections to treat infertility (1965-1985);
3. at least 6 months of stay in France, Great Britain or Ireland (from January 1, 1980 to December 31, 1996).

Questionnaire for blood donors

Before donating blood, a potential donor must fill out a special questionnaire in which he provides information about his health. The questions in the survey refer to the aforementioned cases, and an affirmative answer may be related to the prevention of blood donation (temporary or permanent). Providing truthful answers is extremely important – only a healthy donor can help the cause and help a person in need.

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