Doctors, patients and hospitals are sounding the alarm over Cyprus’s blood supply, calling for an overhaul of blood drive planning and modern methods to attract young donors instead of relying on outdated communication strategies.
Surgery schedules are being maintained with great difficulty at intervals, warned Marios Karaiskakis, president of the Cyprus Association of Private Hospitals. Timely action is needed to attract new donors because the risk of a major crisis is visible, he said.
In recent weeks, hospitals struggled to secure blood units for specific large specialized surgeries, Karaiskakis said. Despite enormous efforts by hospitals, the Blood Centre and the Health Ministry to conserve supplies properly, stocks are not at the levels they should be given increased modern needs, he added.
The warnings follow complaints from Miltos Miltiadous, president of the Cyprus Thalassaemia Association, who reported a large number of transfusion postponements and under-transfusions for thalassaemia patients due to small blood stocks nationwide.
The Health Ministry recognises the problem and on Tuesday issued an announcement calling citizens to donate blood. Needs are increasing constantly because of the large number of surgeries performed in Cyprus and patients no longer going abroad, but the population is small and some difficulty exists, said Elisavet Konstantinou, deputy director general of the Health Ministry.
Actions have been promoted to strengthen blood donation, including amendments to blood donation laws, establishment of a National Committee, and issuance of guidelines applying conservation and rational use measures, Konstantinou said.
Miltiadous said thalassaemia patients currently face a very big problem. Large numbers of transfusions are being postponed and patients are under-transfused—if someone needs two units, they receive only one. This forces people to return the next day, creating hardship and wasting time for the thalassaemia centre itself, he said.
The issue is not just issuing announcements where donors respond and the cycle repeats, Miltiadous said. Things must change. For thalassaemia patients, blood is not something needed once in a lifetime—it is their life and transfusions are their daily routine.
Cyprus has been warned for a long time, he said. Needs have increased because population has grown and the number of specialized surgeries performed in Cyprus has risen.
With the introduction of the national health system, citizens no longer avoid or postpone needed surgery. In 2015, Cyprus needed 65,000 blood units annually; now it needs over 80,000 units.
This increase does not concern thalassaemia patients, whose needs have increased very little this decade, he noted.
The health system now has over one million beneficiaries, a not insignificant portion of whom are foreign nationals, Miltiadous said. A significant part of these people are not included in the donor pool—a practice applied for decades based on past blood safety standards.
Scientific data and screening methods have changed, and perhaps donor eligibility groups should be re-evaluated, he said, noting Cyprus has one million beneficiaries but a much smaller number of donors.
Blood drive scheduling must change, Miltiadous said. Needs are not elevated all year and blood drives are not conducted all year—a way must be found to align needs with drives.
Communication with donors must change, he said. Authorities must use social media and reach high schools, the National Guard and universities.
Modern ways must be found to contact young people and include them in blood donation. Under current conditions, existing donors are bombarded with dozens of text messages, which is tiring for them, he added.
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