Madrid hospitals urgently need blood donations from groups '0-' and 'A-', whose reserves are on red alert, as reported this Monday by the Transfusion Center of the Community of Madrid.
The rest of the groups ('0', 'A', 'AB', 'B', 'AB-' and 'B-') are at the green level, with a call to donate in the next collection. "Hospitals need blood every day for surgeries, emergencies and transfusions," the Transfusion Center recalled.
Every year, in the region, around 38,000 units of blood can be transfused in surgeries, 42,000 for onco-hematological patients, 30,000 in emergencies and 9,000 in pediatric interventions.
To be able to donate, you only need to be between 18 and 65 years old, weigh more than 50 kilos and be in good health. Every day 900 blood donations are needed in the region. This precious commodity cannot be manufactured and its components have a very short viability period in the case of platelets.
These are very necessary, for example, in the treatment of cancer patients, and can only be kept for five days. This prevents a large stock from being maintained and, therefore, a permanent input of blood is necessary to produce them.
Depending on the patient's pathology, one or more blood components, red blood cells, plasma and platelets, are transfused, so a single action can help improve or save the lives of three patients.
