The main objective of the campaign is to attract the students’ attention to the problem of donor blood shortage in Russia and continue the tradition of “donor full age”, when a person becomes of full age only after the first blood donation. This is the second time the campaign “Day of donor full age” is held, the beginning was in 2010. Within this campaign students of higher and secondary professional education who had already turned 18 joined the donor movement and donated blood for the first time. Those who donated last year or earlier also joined and donated repeatedly.
In 2011, the campaign “Day of donor full age” united students in more than 200 institutions from 63 regions of Russia. The total number of participants was close to 14,000 which is three times more than last year when the campaign was a premiere!
Saint-Petersburg is a leader in the number of 18-year-old students giving blood for the first time on the “Day of donor full age” – there, 373 students became donors for the first time in their lives. Other cities are Chita (260 students), Yaroslavl (195 students), Belgorod (178 students) and Barnaul (177 students).
Following the tradition, on 15 November, the students of the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University joined the campaign. Future doctors do not deny the necessity of free blood donation. They are aware that every third person on the planet at least once in a lifetime needs blood transfusion and as all medics they understand how important it is at the critical moment to have everything necessary to render timely aid to a patient including donor blood.
The number of students-participants in the “Day of donor full age” in Moscow has doubled compared with 2010: on the day of campaign it attracted 100 people.
The event was attended by the rector of the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor Pyotr Glybochko – he delivered a welcome speech, congratulated and thanked all who had donated blood on this day. He also noted the importance of such campaigns:
Yulia Savicheva also attended the “Day of donor full age” to support the future doctors in their honorable undertaking. She said a word of welcome and performed a fragment of her popular song “Yesli v serdtse zhivyot lyubov” (If love lives in the heart) a capella.
thanked the students Sofia Malyavina, Assistant Minister of Helath and Social Development.
More information on blood and its components donation, on the location of the nearest blood transfusion station, and possible contraindications, on preparing for donation can be found at our website or by calling the Blood Service Hotline 8-800-333-33-30 (Toll-free call across Russia).
