Even if it is for profit, it can still be used to save someone's life.
this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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I don't have a problem with a for profit model as we live in a monetary system and every donation requires a paid staff and medical supplies as well as a donor's time and willingness as donating is not without some risk.
It is the infinite profit model that is a problem. The immoral example would be sucking every penny out of patients for blood coming from completely free donations. Or worse, requiring people to pay to donate and manipulating them into doing it.
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I think paying for blood or other bodily fluids is bad. It provides incentive for desperate people (addicts etc.) to lie on the safety forms to keep getting paid.
I know a few people who donate blood despite not getting anything in return. I personally stopped donating plasma after a few times for health reasons (nothing dangerous in the plasma itself, luckily). To me, being able to help a hospital or a person by simply sitting back and watching shows on my tablet is probably the easiest, laziest charity you can support. The snacks are nice, too.
Not everyone can donate blood, but everyone who is able to, you should consider it, even if you won't get paid for it. You can doom scroll and browse Lemmy like normal, except you're sitting in a weird chair and get free food.
I suppose in the shittier countries, where all blood donation stuff is run for-profit, you should let them pay you if they're making a profit off of you, but I still think it brings a bad incentive.
Anti. There will never be a day where they pay me enough to contribute to blood stocks for hateful amerikans.
U.S. here. I "donate" blood regularly to Vitalant. I enjoy the way they do it. You get "points" or often something free for donating (shirts, your name in their sweepstakes to win something large, etc.). You can use the points to redeem gift cards or choose to "donate" the gift card amount back to the organization.
My thoughts: I think these organizations have more donors when they offer compensation, even small vs if they did not. I saw Red Cross offer a chance to win a PS5 once and I'm quite sure it caught some peoples attention and earned them more first time donors -> potential long-term donors.
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 doesnβt 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 isβ¦well itβs 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) 75β¬ 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 15β¬ (?) 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), 50β¬ 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 75β¬ 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:
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It costs them a lot of money to investigate new prospects, so you want reliable repeat donors
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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 75β¬ are just one more expense among many, and from donation to usage probably vanish in the overall costs.
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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.
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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.
TBH, it was a crucial life line for me at a tough time in my life economically.
I didn't have the energy to work a part-time job and just 90 minutes a week translated to an extra $400-$500 bucks a month.
At its core, it shouldn't be necessary for people to sell blood and plasma, but Americans vote for for-profit health care and their own impoverishment every two years, so regardless of one's thoughts on the matter, your very blood is now commoditized at the consent of the voters.
Considering you said you're german, I think the whole Idea of "Ehrenamt" and subsidiaries of it runs counter to the entire system that has been built. If we monetize everything, I think it's fine that people get paid for taking time out of their day and bodies to do good shit.
Basically, don't do unpaid labour in this system?
O- here. I frequently get called up when the red cross needs donations. We don't get paid either but it's an hour I'm off work and it does save lives.
Hello fellow universal donor. I'm blessed with the same blood type, so I donate the blood when I can at my local hospital. Usually 3x a year.
At first there was not much thought behind it, as both my parents went there too. When I turned 18 they just asked: "Do you want to go too?" And my answer was obviously yes, because why not? It was day off school, after all.
Now it's just automatic. Since I only donate in my local hospital (small town, 15k people) I believe my blood gets to help people. They don't pay for it, it's volunteer, organized by red cross. They used to cover bus ride, but lately switched that for "food stamp" instead. We also get juice, coffee and snack once donated. The good part is, it's still day off work where I live.
In general even if your donating the blood for free they will still charge the person who gets the blood thousands of dollars at least in the US. They might just bill it as the service of sticking the needle in and hanging the bag up for you or whatever, but in essence they do charge for the blood and make a profit off of it.
I do think its a good thing to donate and help people, but i also do think that companies take advantage of the situation to make a profit off of it, and it is definitely exploitation. Donating blood plasma specifically is not a fun process, and it can leave a permanent scar on your arm if done a lot. The pay for it compared to the problems, and the profits they make on it is definitely understandable to see as a scam.
Now is the answer to that to just let people who need blood die? Obviously no. The answer is the make laws that say companies must provide a fair market rate for peoples plasma if selling it, or ideally just make laws that make all healthcare free so its not an issue anymore.
If they see it as a scam then they seem to expect certain financial gain from donating. In my opinion this is bad as donating life-saving goods should not be done just for the money.
You can't be scammed if you are doing it for saving lifes (except if they sell the blood to some shady labs instead hospitals).
In order to answer this, I'd need to compare the efficacy of both the for-profit and the non-profit organizations. In some countries you don't get paid, and I don't know if that leads to blood shortages.
I side with you. I've donated over a gallon of blood and blood products throughout the years. You're helping someone. The reason they pay you is to incentivize coming and doing it. It's painful for the donor, and it takes a while for your body to recover. The company doing so is (in my experience, anyway) a non-profit organization. They exist to help people. They do make money, but that's because they have to pay their employees and donors, as you've mentioned.
I'm usually sitting or lying down.
Tissue, cell and organ donation (including blood, semen and oocytes) can and should be done strictly not-for-profit. This is how it's done in Spain (well, you do get a snack when donating blood and a small amount of money for oocytes since the process is quite long) and there's usually no shortage of blood components in hospitals. Local governments do a lot of campaigning, set up mobile units etc., which seems to work; people see all of that, think of it when planning their day, and many even go in small groups to donate.