Blood brotherhood
If you're healthy and 18 to 60 years old, the Polish Red Cross wants you. Marek Wawrzyniak, who has been a member of the Red Cross for more than half a century, is retired and over the technical age limit. But he still continues too give.
"I donated blood the first time for Hungarians when there had been a shooting in Budapest in (the uprising of) 1956," Wawrzyniak said. "I keep going because of an inner need to help people."
Wawrzyniak has donated more than 40 liters since joining the Red Cross as a teenager in 1945, he said. Now with a note from a doctor, Wawrzyniak donates blood, or rather part of it, called thrombocytes or platelets, which are responsible for clotting. When not donating blood at the Children's Hospital on ulica Litewska, Wawrzyniak visits the Red Cross center on ulica Mokotowska because it "feels like home," he said.
The Red Cross, which no longer functions as a blood collection center, promotes blood drives and maintains a pool of 600,000 registered Red Cross donors. To keep the Hematology Institute's blood banks full, the Red Cross has worked out a variety of donor incentives, which range from free vitamins and discounts on medicines to "no waiting" in drugstore lines, among the worst queuing venues nationwide.
The top award is a lifetime free pass to city transportation nationwide for those who have donated more than 30 liters of blood. That represents about 2.5 years of blood service, donating 450 milliliters every two months, the maximum level allowable, according to health restrictions.
Blood donating is mainly a male domain here, because only 5% of volunteers are woman, according to the Red Cross and Hematology Institute.
Thus, Marta Kusmierska, an exception to that rule, donated blood at the Hematology Institute on ulica Chocimska last Thursday. (See photo)
"I donated blood for the first time a few days before the rotunda exploded in 1979," said Kusmierska, referring to the gas leak explosion that killed 49 people at the intersection of Aleja Jerozolimskie and Ulica Marsalkowska. "After that catastrophe I realized how much blood was needed."
Kusmierska said she has donated about 11 liters of blood during 20 years of service. "I don't have any reasons to be proud, compared to my neighbor," Kusmierska said, noting Marcin Mrozinski, 25, sitting nearby with a tube running from his arm. During four years, Mrozinski has donated seven liters of blood. "I come here when I want, but the biggest problem I deal with is getting up early," Mrozinski said.
That's because blood donating begins at 8 a.m. on weekdays and lasts up to five hours at the institute's center on Chocimska, one of 11 blood donating centers in Warsaw.
The nation operates 344 blood banks nationwide, and the blood pool is keeping up with demand, said Jerzy Czubak, president of the Polish Red Cross.
But demand is rising, Czubak said, not because of disasters or growing health and safety risks, but because of steady medical progress.
"Nobody died because of the lack of blood so far," Czubak said. But the number of complicated operations is increasing, thus fueling the demand for blood. There are also seasonal effects, such as during the summer when people are outdoors and more inclined to injury. The recent papal visit also required health authorities to pump up their blood reserves due to possible accidents associated with the large audiences observing the visit.
There are basically two methods of taking blood. One takes whole blood, with all its elements for use in blood transfusions. The second method basically extracts specific ingredients, such as Wawrzynski's platelets mentioned above, and returns 90% of the blood withdrawn to the donor. "Whole blood is used very rarely, more often it's just blood extracts," Czubak said. "The method is economically efficient, because it uses what is really necessary and patients get what they really need."
In addition to being head of the Red Cross in Warsaw, Czubak is also a leading donor, having given about 40 liters of blood during the past three decades, he said.
"Forty liters of blood means that seven people are alive," Czubak said. About five to six liters of blood circulate in an adult's body. "To donate blood is easy. It takes a few minutes, and it's safe."
