A blood donation occurs when a healthy person voluntarily has blood drawn. The blood is used for transfusions or made into medications by a process called fractionation.

In the developed world, most blood donors are unpaid volunteers who give blood for a community supply. In poorer countries, established supplies are limited and donors usually give blood when family or friends need a transfusion. Many donors donate as an act of charity, but some are paid and in some cases there are incentives other than money such as paid time off from work. A donor can also have blood drawn for their own future use. Donating is relatively safe, but some donors have bruising where the needle is inserted or may feel faint.

Potential donors are evaluated for anything that might make their blood unsafe to use. The screening includes testing for diseases that can be transmitted by a blood transfusion, including HIV and viral hepatitis. The donor is also asked about medical history and given a short physical examination to make sure that the donation is not hazardous to his or her health. How often a donor can give varies from days to months based on what he or she donates and the laws of the country where the donation takes place. For example, in the United States donors must wait 8 weeks (56 days) between whole blood donations but only three days between plateletpheresis donations.

The amount of blood drawn and the methods vary, but a typical donation is 450 milliliters (or approximately one US pint) of whole blood. The collection can be done manually or with automated equipment that only takes specific portions of the blood. Most of the components of blood used for transfusions have a short shelf life, and maintaining a constant supply is a persistent problem.

Blood Donors ( INDIA )

Blood donor base is the foundation of any blood transfusion system. In India any able-bodied individual between the age of 18 and 60 years can donate blood upto 168 times.After the historic directives of the Supreme Court officially, there is theoretically no paid blood seller in India from January 1, 1998. So, at the moment, blood donors are of two types:

Voluntary Blood Donor:
A voluntary blood donor donates blood out of his/her free will without expecting anything of monetary value from the blood bank or patients” relatives or any other source at the time of donation or in future. Acceptance of voluntary blood donor’s certificates, badges or cards is permissible according to the law of the land. Such recognition of donor is universal.

 Replacement Blood Donor:
Replacement blood donor is a member of the family or a friend of the patient who donates blood in replacement of blood needed for the particular patient without involvement of any monetary or other benefits from any source. Normally, blood bank or transfusion centre provides the right group of blood for the patient and replacement donor belonging to any other blood group replaces the supply in quantity. But whenever blood is donated by a relative donor for a particular patient, it is called Directed Donation. Directed donation from relatives is not always safe. Husband’s blood given to wife can lead to antibody formation causing problems to the foetus in future. Blood from any blood relative such as father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister can lead to serious medical complications. Even for transfusion transmitted infection, the close relation who had been socially pressurized to donate, are at times not able to disclose their risky sexual behaviour. Such donation should be avoided as far as possible to maintain ethical code of anonymity between the donor and the recipient and to avoid many future complications — social, legal, emotional.It has been proved universally and accepted all over the world that non-profit blood is statistically less contaminated by diseases, than blood obtained from commercial or other sources.So, in the days of blood communicable infections, which are often fatal any ideal transfusion service should depend on real voluntary blood donors recruited through education. In view of the city based health care service in a  redominantly agricultural country with a very low national income, rural people coming to city based hospitals are unable to organize replacement/relative donor to meet their blood need. More than half the population of the country is medically fit to donate blood. But 4 out of 1000 of the population in India are blood donors. So the reasons for not donating blood should be studied by blood donor motivators to convert the non-donor to donor.
The reasons for not donating blood are:

• Fear of the needle
• Fear of pain
• Fear of sight of blood
• Fear of future weakness
• Fear of possible ill effects
• Objection from the elders
• Apathy
• Indifference
• Social taboo
• Medical excuses
• Story of wastage of collected blood
• Ignorance and illiteracy
• Blood is sold at a high premium
• Inconvenience due to location and timing of blood collection
• Apprehension of post donation reaction
• Has never been asked personally.
• Motivators should also know the reasons for blood donation by thepresent microscopic minority.Reasons for donating blood are:
• Altruism
• Service to the community
• Sense of social duty
• Gaining experience
• Personal obligation
• Personal appeal
• Social pressure
• Group pressure
• For helping friends or relatives
• For blood donor credit card
• For recognition and awards
• Checking up health
• Reciprocity to pay back the social debt
• For- knowing blood group
• Seeing others donating blood
• Celebrities appealing to donate blood.
• Motivators should appreciate that in the materialistic world of today
• the donor has some expectations.
• Expectations are:
• Cordial reception
• Painless bleeding
• Clean and hygienic environment
• Blood group and credit card
• Proper utilisation of blood
• Availability of blood in later time of donor’s need
• Transparency of blood transfusion service.

It is well known that in the corner of every human heart there is a desire to do good to others without causing any harm to oneself and be remembered for the service, therefore, donors and non-donors should be handled keeping in mind the eternal human psychology. The donors have a right to know many things. Donor motivators should equip themselves to satisfy the quest of the donor for knowledge about blood and blood transfusion service, which includes basic blood science, blood group, its inheritance, principles of selection of donors, blood need of the state or region and present supply, procedure for procuring blood from blood banks in time of need.It should be borne in mind by the donor motivators that blood donors are not mere numbers in statistics but are human beings in flesh and blood and should be handled with tender loving care.Blood donors are the ambassadors of blood transfusion service. They can become donor-recruiters too, in course of time. The word of mouth from blood donors may bring credit or discredit to any transfusion service.