Privileges for blood donors?

Family, Education, Health and Pets
1
In my home country you're given a day-off on the day of blood donation, plus if you're a frequent donor, you receive a lot of privileges. How is it in Switzerland?

2
Wow, you get a day off and priviliges? In my country you get a snack and a drink and then back to work (which is fully ok imho if you feel well)

3
You get free chocolate.

4
In the UK you get a cuppa and a biscuit (if you're lucky, a chocolate one) and then get sent on your way. You also have to answer some questions that I can't imagine ANYONE answering with a straight face...

If you're a fainter, you also get a bit of a lie down. And then the mickey is taken when you go back to work. That's certainly my experience when my old place of work used to let us donors out to give blood at the TA barracks around the corner. We could use company time, however. I think they gave us up to about an hour. Unless you're a fainter. Then different rules applied. Mostly the mickey was taken the next day.

5
Some employers will organise a works trip to the donor centre, or organise for the blood bank to come to the workplace if enough workers are interested.

The main advantage of being a blood donor here (apart from the rosy glow you get for 'doing good') is that you'll get free transfusions if you ever need them.

What goes around comes around and all that.

6
People from the UK are still excluded from donating?

Mad cow disease and all that?

7
Yep.

8
Yep.

From http://www.blutspende.ch/de/blutspen...n_blut_spenden

9

Really? Even if the initial sample is tested?

10
I've donated enough anyway, +50 for me..

My prize in the UK .. A little heart shape badge :/

11
Yep.

The American Red Cross is even more restrictive

http://www.redcrossblood.org/donatin...l-listing#arc5

It can not be tested.

12
What country gives you a day off?

13
At the moment the only way of 'testing' for BSE (mad cow disease) is postmortem. Same goes for what many people think is the human form of mad cow; Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, at the moment it can only be confirmed after death (although there is a possible test in the development pipeline it will take quite a while for that to become the norm at blood banks).

So finding out that the donor's initial blood sample is clear is pretty much moot as they won't be giving any more!

14
The OP appears to be russian.

15
A highly-specific test has been developed , but it'll probably be some time before it becomes commercially available, if ever.

16
I'm outraged. I've a good mind to wr... mooooooooooooooooooooo!!

17
Russia, probably other USSR countries as well.

18
My dad got dinner and a soft blood-drop toy, but that might have been 60 donations.

I'm not only British, but a reciever (In the UK) so I can never donate again. I gave three (low flow a fainter so they sent me away a lot) and got four after my baby was born. I always feel bad when the Uni has a blood-drive and I have to walk past knowing I can not pay of my 'debt'

19
Is it a day off with pay?

And how many times a week can one give blood?

20
The US is really strict. I was in a car wreck in 1983 and had a head injury. In the Emergency Room, they gave me a dose of Dilantin, which is the anti-seizure medicine that they give epileptics.

Because of that one dose, I can never donate blood again, which I think is a bit of overkill, but, whatever.