Quote:
Originally Posted by thechosenone
I asked why they had not checked on my welfare post harvest. I was advised that the hospital does not have a Donor follow up procedure, because enough research has already been conducted worldwide.
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This is the part that made my jaw drop. Isn't the point of follow-up on any medical procedure to make sure the patient is doing okay, not to add to their own research? That just boggles the mind.
I too appreciate hearing a donor's perspective. We don't hear enough of that. I am also mystified by the lack of incentives given to people to donate either blood or marrow. I'm not sure paying people outright to donate is necessarily the right approach, however. That used to be done with blood donation, but it was attracting the wrong sort of people for the wrong reasons, so that's been discontinued. There are other incentives that could be offered, however, such as a credit to the account of a friend or loved one. Depending on your insurance coverage, blood products can cost a lot of money to receive. When my husband was reliant on transfusions, we had lots of friends who would have donated if that donation could have been credited to his account, but our local blood bank doesn't have that sort of program, so we had to pay full price and the blood bank lost out on a lot of donations.
And why are potential marrow donors being charged to join the registry? I know that Be The Match has one free month, but if they really want to encourage more registrants, they should waive all costs for joining, testing, donation and follow-up care. How can we expect people to give selflessly to a stranger, and then ask them to pay for it? It makes no sense to me.
I donate blood and joined the registry because I have first hand knowledge of how important it is, but most people don't. And I agree that as long as there are people who can't find a perfectly matched donor on the registry, there is a need to recruit more, particularly people of color and/or less common ethnic combinations.