Blood Donation - Donor Compensation

Donor Compensation

The World Health Organization set a goal in 1997 for all blood donations to come from unpaid volunteer donors, but as of 2006, only 49 of 124 countries surveyed had established this as a standard. Some countries, such as Tanzania, have made great strides in moving towards this standard, with 20 percent of donors in 2005 being unpaid volunteers and 80 percent in 2007, but 68 of 124 countries surveyed by WHO had made little or no progress. Many plasmapheresis donors in the United States are still paid for donations. A few countries rely on paid donors to maintain an adequate supply. In some countries, for example Brazil, Argentina, Australia and Bulgaria, it is illegal to receive any compensation, monetary or otherwise, for the donation of blood or other human tissues.

Regular donors are often given some sort of non-monetary recognition. Time off from work is a common benefit. For example, in Italy, blood donors receive the donation day as a paid holiday from work. Blood centers will also sometimes add incentives such as assurances that donors would have priority during shortages, free T-shirts, first aid kits, windshield scrapers, pens, and similar trinkets. There are also incentives for the people who recruit potential donors, such as prize drawings for donors and rewards for organizers of successful drives. Recognition of dedicated donors is common. For example, the Singapore Red Cross Society presents awards for voluntary donors who have made a certain number of donations under the Blood Donor Recruitment Programe starting with a "bronze award" for 25 donations. The government of Malaysia also offers free outpatient and hospitalization benefits for blood donors, for example, 3 months of free outpatient treatment for every donation.

Most allogeneic blood donors donate as an act of charity and do not expect to receive any direct benefit from the donation. The sociologist Richard Titmuss, in his 1970 book The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy, compared the merits of the commercial and non-commercial blood donation systems of the USA and the UK. The book became a bestseller in the USA, resulting in legislation to regulate the private market in blood. The book is still referenced in modern debates about turning blood into a commodity. The book was republished in 1997 and the same ideas and principles are applied to analogous donation programs, such as organ donation and sperm donation.