This year, 26 thousand Kosovars donated blood, most for injuries in accidents

Last Friday may have been fatal for 37-year-old Gjakova municipality, Arlinda Himaj. She was pregnant and expected twin children when complications were presented in her 25th week, leading her into a shock condition as a result of the great bloodshed. In order to keep Arlinda alive, QKUUK doctors worked more than seven hours in the operating room. It took more than 20 doses of blood for Mother of Gjakova to survive surgery.

The 37-year-old girl was in surgery by the KKUUK staff at 2: 00 p.m., so providing enough blood doses at the time has been difficult. There should have been blood from other people because the Blood Transfusion Center didn't have enough doses.

Despite this, Bekiye Raqa-Zhubi, the task manager of the Kosovo Centre for Blood Transfusion in Pristina, has told Gazeta Express that the increase of blood donors is marked annually.

But it suggests that there are times when the blood doses that this center possesses are not enough to cover all the cases that need blood supply.

“... in certain situations (exaudite politicum with large numbers of injured, massive bloodshed required 30 to 40 doses from the same group, big demand for rare blood groups), reserves at the QKKTR may not be enough at the moment, for which the need for oriented donations is required”, Zhubi said.

It explains about blood groups that are mostly required by patients. He says they're having trouble providing blood with the negative group because these groups are less rare.

“Blood cells with Rh negative (O-A-, B-, AB- ) are the rarest blood types. Consequently, when the patient is with a negative factor, and there is a need for a large number of doses, there is a need for mobilization of blood donations (oriented delivery), which are more likely to have the group and Rh the same factor as the patient”, she said.

While until December of this year, about 26 thousand citizens have donated blood to the Centre for Blood Transfusion. According to the director of this center, about 78 per minute are volunteer donors, while the rest are oriented donors.

The number of requests and doses given to QKUK, regional hospitals and other institutions that use blood or blood products for clinical treatment are usually calculated in January-Frit for the preliminary year”, she said. According to the QKKTG, the number of doses issued for health institutions exceeds twice that of blood donations.

And at the Center for Blood Transfusion, about 80 percent of patients ' needs are said to be covered by volunteer blood donors. As many as 20 percent of patients continue to cover their families.

Volunteer blood donation is organised every year in Kosovo, and according to officials from the blood transfusion centre, the number of citizens responding to demand is increasing annually. They say that despite major demands for blood, in Kosovo so far, no one has suffered from its absence.