Olivier Durat, as communication officer at the French Blood Establishment (EFS), you are once again relaying his call for help. What is the situation ?
The stock fell in France to less than 70,000 blood bags while it takes 100,000 to reach the safety threshold. It is very worrying. If we do nothing, we will be forced to deprogram operations, and we don’t want to consider that for a moment.
But for the past year, it feels like the EFS is sounding the red alert roughly every 3-4 months. What is going on ?
Yes, we have been in an almost permanent crisis for months. Which can have several reasons. A certain withdrawal into oneself? May be. But we are also faced with recruitment difficulties in the medical team, for example. With 200 vacancies for doctors and nurses at the EFS nationally, which ended up causing problems even in our region. But for us, cancellations were extremely rare. We have always gone out of our way to maintain a collection.
Problem aggravated, in addition, by the circumstances…
Indeed. The 5th wave has also affected our donors who have therefore remained far from our centers in recent weeks. She did not spare the medical profession either. So much so that we are faced with a significant absenteeism. But that’s not all !
To know ?
Since 1is deconfinement, we are facing collection difficulties for various reasons. Some of our usual places have been transformed into vaccination centres; teaching places have been very badly affected by the Covid epidemic; and in companies, where we also organize collections, teleworking has again become the norm. So no one there to give.
“Motivate donors by all means”
But telework will partly persist after the pandemic. As for the recruitment of nursing staff, given the training time, it will take several years. So there are structural difficulties here, at least in the medium term.
Yes, and it will force us to reinvent ourselves in the future. We are already thinking about it.
In the meantime, even the Great East is beginning to worry about its self-sufficiency…
Indeed, and it’s heartbreaking. The people of the Great East have so far been generous enough not only to provide for their own needs, but also to help other areas provide for theirs. But now, the pressure affects us, too.
So how do you raise inventory?
By trying to motivate donors by all means, even by SMS. And we also rely on events. Until February 19 runs the Valentine’s Day operation at the Maison du Don. And above all, Saturday, February 26, at the town hall of Nancy, is programmed the gastronomic gift. All of that is good, because it’s over the next three weeks that we’re going to have to play very tight.
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