I’ve had a little of a debate with a commenter recently where they’ve argued that “donating” (selling, in their words, because you can get money for it) your blood plasma is a scam because it’s for-profit and you’re being exploited.
Now, I only have my German lense to look at this, but I’ve been under the impression that donating blood, plasma, thrombocytes, bone marrow, whatever, is a good thing because you can help an individual in need. I get that, in the case of blood plasma, the companies paying people for their donations must make some kind of profit off that, else they wouldn’t be able to afford paying around 25€ per donation. But I’m not sure if I’d call that a scam. People are all-around, usually, too selfish and self-centered to do things out of the goodness of their hearts, so offering some form of compensation seems like a good idea to me.
In the past, I’ve had my local hospital call me asking for a blood donation, for example, because of an upcoming surgery of a hospitalised kid that shares my blood group. I got money for that too.
What are your guys’ thoughts on the matter? Should it be on donation-basis only and cut out all incentives - monetary or otherwise? Is it fine to get some form of compensation for the donation?
Very curious to see what you think
Never heard anyone getting payed for donating anything in Germany. You can get an compensation for expenses, yes. But this is not supposed to be a payment for your donation, it is supposed to compensate for your expenses. For example: Finding a babysitter or paying for bus, train, gas. Sometimes you have to make a medical examination beforehand, which also can take some time.
The German Red Cross for example explicitly doesn’t pay the donors so nobody gets the wrong idea and tries to donate as much and often at the cost of their own health.
I think the idea that a compensation is equal to a payment is flawed beyond reason. If someone has a problem with any organisation misusing donations for profit, they should (rightfully) engage in changing the law. Categorically not donating at all is…well it’s just selfish and stupid.
Both from Germany:
I remember that in my high school time many in my year went to plasma donation as often as it was allowed to collect the compensation. So while you are right that is legally never called payment, people with a need for cash for sure sell their plasma for money.
Oh and in the public sector there is or at least was in the past also the possibility for donating blood and you get the 2 hours or so for that paid as normal. So the government donated the money for a good course.
I am also from Germany and get payed for donating thrombocytes at my university hospital. The compensation is actually quite substantial imo at (up to) 75€ per session, which can be done every two weeks. The money is however mean to offset the time required, not the thrombocytes donated. So it is correlated to how long it takes.
You get 15€ (?) for up to 15min (if they have to abort very early for some reason or at your first visit where they just draw blood to test), 50€ for up to 1h (which equals to 1 instead of 2 pack of thrombocytes, usually done at your first real donation or if you maybe dont have enough for 2 on this particular day), and 75€ for anything over 1h (which is the norm).
Timewise the hospital is on the outskirts of the city, so most will have to travel a bit, then you have to fill out forms, have a quick talk with the doctor, and finally depending on your parameters it takes anywhere from ~55-70min to extract, during which you are tethered to a machine (which takes out some blood, then seperates out the thrombocytes with a centrifuge, pumps back the rest, and repeat).
One could get philosophical about the topic, but from a practical perspective the money makes a lot of sense imo:
It costs them a lot of money to investigate new prospects, so you want reliable repeat donors
Each donation already has other costs associated with it. Like for example the kit used during extraction, the staff handling everything and so on. So even those 75€ are just one more expense among many, and from donation to usage probably vanish in the overall costs.
For the donor it is quite a substantial time commitment, especially when done regularly every two weeks. Unlike for example full blood donations you’d maybe do twice a year. And you should be reliable and not randomly cancel at the last second, so ideally it also has priority over some other things in your life.
the small amount of blood that remains inside the machine is sometimes used for other research (if you agree to it, which i do)
From my own experience i can say that i might still do it without, but certainly not at the same frequency. And considering the time and effort required i don’t think anyone could be blamed for doing it less frequently without the incentive. So at least in this case it imo is a fair trade and net positive. Although it does also help that this is a university hospital that directly uses it themselves, rather than a for profit company.