Military Blood Service in Poland

Tomasz Kryczka; Anna Jedynak; Adam Olszewski; Lidia Sierpinska; Paula Kuzniarska; Dorota Sulejczak

doi:10.2147/JBM.S390673

Military Blood Service in Poland

J Blood Med. 2023 Apr 17:14:309-316. doi: 10.2147/JBM.S390673. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Tomasz Kryczka^#¹, Anna Jedynak^#^{2

3}, Adam Olszewski^{3

4}, Lidia Sierpinska⁵, Paula Kuzniarska⁶, Dorota Sulejczak⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Development of Nursing and Social & Medical Sciences, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
² Department of Military Medical Service, Ministry of National Defence of Poland, Warsaw, Poland.
³ Military Center of Blood Donation and Haemotherapy, Warsaw, Poland.
⁴ Garrison Medical Outpatient Clinic, Modlin, Poland.
⁵ Independent Public Health Care Unit, Military Teaching Hospital with Polyclinic, Lublin, Poland.
⁶ Military Center of Blood Donation and Haemotherapy, Gdansk, Poland.
⁷ Department of Experimental Pharmacology, Mossakowski Medical Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Introduction: On 24 February 2022, the Russia-Ukraine military conflict unfolded just across the eastern border of the European Union. It made everyone realize how important it is to secure blood supplies to health-care units in the event of an armed conflict. This paper presents the principles of functioning of the Military Blood Donation Service and the Military Center for Blood Donation and Hemotherapy in Poland.

Methods: The study used data collected in the "Military Blood Bank" information processing system and data from annual reports (2010-2021) sent to the Minister of Health of the Republic of Poland. The reports concerned, among others: demographic data on donors, reasons of permanent disqualifications, numbers of complete and incomplete donations, etc.

Results: Since 2005, the number of donors registered in military blood donation centers ranged between 15 and 35 thousand/year. The most dramatic declines in donors were observed in 2010 and 2020. Successful donations accounted for more than 98% of all donations/year (except 2015), and their number varied between 20 and 32 thousand/year. Among the blood donors, men always predominated and the dominant age group (except for 2010) was 25-44 years. The reasons for permanent disqualification have varied over time: their proportions decreased for viral hepatitis and cardiovascular disease, and increased for respiratory and endocrine/metabolic diseases. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020/2021, these proportions have sometimes been reversed.

Discussion: The Military Blood Donation Service has been functioning in Poland for several decades. It is specialized in supplying blood and blood products to the Armed Forces. Unfortunately, it was not possible to refer to the functioning of similar institutions in other countries. Therefore, when evaluating the functioning of Polish military blood donation, we had to rely on numerical values (eg, number of donors/year, donor profile, etc.), which prove a very good organization of blood donation centers. However, it should be noted that, as in other countries, a more active promotion of blood donation in the media is advisable in order to encourage as many young people as possible to donate blood.

Keywords: blood donation; blood donors; military blood donation.