This example shows clearly how important it is to donate blood. “We need around 28,000 units a year but can only barely cover half of our needs,” says Monika Jakobs-Sackenheim from the Institute for Experimental Haematology and Transfusions Medicine when explaining the problem. On Wednesday, the University Hospital took part in the WHO’s international World Blood Donor Day, whose slogan is: “What can you do? Give blood. Give now. Give often!”

The institute was giving information to volunteers from information stands in Poppelsdorf and Venusberg. “We particularly want to make students aware of the issue,” said Jakobs-Sackenheim. “Each donation helps us to secure our clinic’s basic supplies,” emphasises Johannes Oldenburg, director of the Institute for Experimental Haematology and Transfusions Medicine. “It is especially useful to us when donors come regularly so that we can react quickly in serious emergencies.” There are shortages every year in the summer holidays and in January.

Donations of blood not only prevent an accident victim bleeding to death, but also often support the treatment of cancer patients and premature babies. Many operations would not take place without the appropriate donations. The University Hospital alone needs 80 units of blood per day to treat patients.

Lena and Bianca have never before thought about voluntarily having a needle stuck in them. “I’m really very scared of injections,” apologises 21-year-old Lena. But Jakobs-Sackenheim calms them. “It’s all over in five to ten minutes. It really looks worse than it is,” she tells the students and once again makes the necessity clear. “Around 80 per cent of all citizens need blood at least once in their life or a medicine produced from plasma. The demand is therefore huge. Each one of us could rely on it once.”

(Original text: Gabriele Immenkeppel. Translated by Kate Carey.)