It's a blood bath!

2006-01-17 10:45

I am considering getting together a circle of friends who live within a 50km radius to be my preferred blood donors. Given the current social climate, I would ask them to undergo an Aids test before putting them on my list. I would do the same for them.

I remember, about six years ago, when a friend of mine was having emergency surgery, she had to have a couple of pints of blood from the blood bank. There was no time to call any family member to donate; she had to have the blood that was available then.

Although when she needed more blood in the days that followed, her sister was able to provide it, there was no escaping the fact that she had had two pints from an anonymous source.

She was told to go for a series of Aids tests over the next six months, just to be sure that the blood she had received was not contaminated.

Bad blood

I was surprised to learn that blood from the blood bank could give a person Aids, since I thought all their blood was tested. But what I learnt was that there is a window period of a few days where the blood of a person who has contracted Aids doesn't show up the antibodies.

Because of this window period, the blood bank uses a variety of donor screening methods to ensure that the disease isn't transmitted. Part of these screening procedures is questioning patients about high-risk activity, and about whether they belong to high-risk population groups.

And it is this that has lead to such a furore breaking out in South Africa, against the blood bank, by a gay rights group, claiming that it is unconstitutional to discriminate against them.

The only judgement made against people from these groups is that they are from high-risk groups.

This is fact, backed up by statistics, and is the cause for a great deal of educational and aid work being done. I would like to know whether the same people from these so-called high-risk groups would also like all social support and education work targeting them to stop as well.

Constitutional rights

The only form of discrimination against high-risk groups is that they are not allowed to donate blood. Ultimately, it isn't anyone's constitutional right to have a needle plunged into their arm and have blood taken from them. Most people would be relieved to be let off the hook.

In Europe and America, anyone who lives in Africa isn't allowed to donate blood. Although I know that I, personally, have not engaged in any high-risk activities, I accept that this generalisation is for the good of everyone else who might need blood. I certainly won't be campaigning foreign governments and lying on the forms.

And this is the thing that really blows my mind. The few instances a year of people that are infected with Aids by donated blood are as a result of one or two things - donors who have lied on their blood donation forms, or donors whose partners have cheated on them.

Why would anyone lie on a donor form? It's an interesting question. The question is now even more puzzling to me, since I heard that members of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, the group objecting to the blood bank's screening procedures, have sent their high-risk and HIV+ members to donate blood, having lied on the documentation.

What on earth does that serve, other than to make the argument against them more realistic.

I was pleased to note that a number of other gay rights organisations, as well as a number of my gay friends and acquaintances have distanced themselves from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance.

Serena de Souza will go and donate blood this week, even though she hates doing it.

Send your comments to Serena or discuss this column now in our debating forum.

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