Editorial: Blood donation law policies in the Falklands
Written for the February 19, 2021, issue of Penguin News
YOU may have seen adverts around town, and in the paper, asking whether you want to be a blood donor and stating that you’ll be providing “support for your local community by providing blood for transfusion during major emergencies.”
Don’t worry, I’m not going to deny the importance of donating blood and registering for the Emergency Donor Panel. Your blood, whether of a common or rare group, could be the difference between an injured person making it through an emergency or not – and in a community of our size it’s entirely likely that you would have some level of connection to that person. Donating blood is undeniably important, and if you can donate then you should. Therein lies the problem, though; whether you can donate blood.
In the Falkland Islands our policies state that you can’t donate blood if you are HIV or HTLV positive; are a carrier of Hepatitis B or C; have ever injected, or been injected, with drugs; are a man who has had sex with a man in the last 3 months, or are a woman who in the last 3 months has had sex with a man who has ever had sex with a man - the last two restrictions regardless of whether protection was used or not. Do you see the odd ones out on that list?
In the UK in September 2011 a blanket ban on blood donations from men who had sex with other men at any time in their lives – which was enacted during the HIV/Aids crisis in the 80s – was lifted, changed so that a man couldn’t donate blood for 12 months after having sex with a man. In November 2017 the UK policy was further amended so that men who have sex with men could give blood three months after their last sexual activity, whether they used protection or not (our current policy), and then at the end of 2020 it was announced that men in a long-term relationship (longer than 3 months) with a man will be able to donate blood in the UK at any time from the summer of 2021.
At this stage we are behind the curve on changes to policy surrounding blood donation, and it isn’t difficult to argue that we should be aiming to be ahead. Our situation, that we have a small population and our hospital is distant from other hospitals, means that having an adequate supply of different blood-types on short notice is essential and could save lives should an emergency arise.
Samples from every donor are given an infection screening anyway, so all that maintaining this restriction does is enforce negative stereotypes and reduce the number of potential donors by effectively banning gay men, bisexual men, and any female partners of bisexual men, from donating.
It is essential that we maintain a safe blood supply, but we also need to ensure that there is a supply. This is done by making sure that the policies which maintain this lifesaving resource are inclusive and evidence based, as all medical policies should be.
Nicholas Roberts