It’s been the third time in a row this year when the charitable blood donation benefit was held at Kyiv Islamic Cultural Centre. According to the facilitators, more people came to share their blood this time on December 5, though  not as many as one would like. Another hallmark of this benefit was that non-Muslims, who read about it in the social media, came to the Islamic Cultural Centre in order to join it.

Ms.Tetyana Evloeva, a journalist, became the main facilitator of this benefit after she learned about the lack of donors’ blood in Ukraine. When she made a checkup, it appeared that donorship is not only out of favour, but is the last thing most people involved in charity think of.

According to the medical workers, because of the constant lack of donor blood in Ukraine we stopped so low that the relatives of the recipients carry donor blood in public transport, buy it for cash and not only obtain the legally approved documents and checks.

“I contacted the Kyiv City Blood Centre,” - Ms.Evloeva says, - “and learned the conditions we have to fulfill for a benefit like this: what the room the equipment, etc., must be. We had a suitable room at our ICC, so the medical workers came and checked it, and scheduled the date after they approved it. I contacted my co-workers from other department to get some cooperation and a small budget, and everyone liked the idea, as this is indeed a good and charitable deed. We pulled together quite well it seems.”

Mr.Said Ismagilov, Mufti of RAMU “Umma”, stressed the importance of voluntary donorship and said that the procedure must be done according to the rulings of Shariah. “The most important thing is that the donor must be in good health and physical state, so that he is suitable for donation. The main principle of Shariah says “Do no harm!”, so the donorship must neither harm the donor nor the recepient.”

As for the donors who came to Kyiv ICC, they learned about the lack of donors from different sources and came along to support the benefit and help the people who life-saving treatment.

Note: According to the World Health Organization, average 12-15 ml of blood in the blood bank is needed per one Ukrainian, yet the country has only 8-8.5ml. At this point, lives of thousands people are at risk because of the lack of donor blood - injured in car accidents, after surgeries, women after caesarean section. Haemotherapy, however, is done only in cases of serious blood losses. Still, there is a wide range of diseases that can’t be cured without systemic blood transfusions and blood components - such as hemophilia, cancer, aplastic anemia, 
immunologic diseases. Treatment of these diseases lasts for years, and without donors’ blood such patients are doomed. Besides,many vital products for medical treatment are also made of donors’ blood. 

Statistically, every third European adult is a  regular donor, and about 49% of Europeans donated blood at least once. This number increased since 2012 (only 37%)
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Donorship is most popular in Austria (66%), France (52%), in Greece and Cyprus (51% each), and least popular in Portugal, Italy and Poland (22, 23 and 25% respectively). Besides, most donors are well-educated men over 35.

Mr.Hennadii Razumov, oncologist of superior merit, says that bone marrow is stimulated with every blood donation, which can prevent marrow cancer and other types of oncology.

Staff reporter