This year, since January, we have been commemorating the 105th anniversary of the founding of the MU Faculty of Medicine and in cooperation with Brno University Hospitals, we have implemented a campaign to promote blood donation. From February to the end of May, 275 blood donors came to donate blood, almost a third of whom donated for the first time.
This year Masaryk University, as well as four of its founding faculties, marks 105 years since its foundation. Part of the anniversary is a series of events, organised either centrally or by individual faculties. To mark the occasion, the Faculty of Medicine launched the Donate by 105 campaign on 31 January to raise awareness of the importance of blood donation. Both University Hospitals in Brno, respectively the Transfusion Department of St. Anne's University Hospital and the Transfusion and Tissue Department of the University Hospital Brno, also participated in the campaign, where donors could sign up for the campaign until the end of May.
There is an estimated shortage of approximately 100,000 volunteer blood donors in the Czech Republic, but the need for them is worldwide, which is also highlighted every year on World Blood Donor Day, which falls on 14 June. This year it will take place for the twentieth time, and the Brno University Hospital prepared the first edition of the Donate Blood, Brno! festival, which took place in front of the Janáček Theatre. The awareness-raising event with a cultural programme featured the transfusion department, as well as some of the clinics of the Brno University Hospital. The Donate by 105 campaign results were announced by the Vice Dean for Student Affairs and External Relations, Prof. Eva Brichtová, M.D., Ph.D. "Our symbolic task was to collect 105 litres of blood or to recruit at least 105 blood donors. In 4 months 275 donors registered and we collected almost 124 litres of blood. We especially appreciate the first-time donors, of which there were 83," said Prof. Brichtová during the opening of the festival, alongside the director of the Brno University Hospital, Ivo Rovný, MBA, and the head of the TTO of the Brno University Hospital, Hana Lejdarova, MD. She added the importance of blood donors also from her perspective of the neurosurgical profession, how blood transfusions help to complete time-consuming surgeries for severe injuries or brain tumours.
172 blood donors came to the Transfusion Department of the FNUSA, and 103 blood donors came to the Transfusion and Tissue Department of the Brno University Hospital. Everyone who signed up for the campaign received a small gift from the faculty. "Almost every third person came to donate for the first time, which makes us extremely happy because a large number of first-time donors usually do not stay with a single donation and return to donate repeatedly," Marie Krulová adds in the press release. "I would like to thank all the donors very much, because sometimes everybody can find ourselves in a situation where we need someone's donated blood, without even knowing it. The need for blood is constant, as is the shortage of donors, so hopefully a campaign like ours will do its part to help spread awareness of the importance of donation."
Representatives of both FN Brno and FNUSA blood transfusion stations attended a meeting of the LF MU management on Monday 17 June. At the end of the campaign, Dean of the Faculty Martin Repko thanked the ladies present and their entire teams for the excellent work and cooperation over the past four months. Vice Dean Eva Brichtová briefly summarized the project to the members of the management and presented all the data for the campaign, including the final summary.
The head of the TTO Brno University Hospital, MUDr. Hana Lejdarová, thanked for the excellent cooperation and expressed her wish that some form of cooperation could continue in the years to come. MUDr. Jarmila Celerová, Head of the TO FNUSA, in addition to thanking all donors and faculty for the organization, reminded that their centre is celebrating five years since its establishment this year. The Faculty of Medicine of MU took the opportunity during the then campaign to promote blood donation "100 litres of blood THANK YOU MUNI" not only TTO FN Brno and this new FO FNUSA centre as another donation point. During the centenary in 2019, both blood transfusion stations managed to collect almost 273 litres of blood.
The donor stations involved appreciate every donor, as blood is constantly needed and donors are generally rather scarce. The trail is being blazed. What's next?
Jan Křivánek and his research group have long been collaborating with Associate Professor Anamaria Balic from the University of Zurich on uncovering the natural behaviour of stem cells. During May, doc. Balic visited the MU Faculty of Medicine in May so that these research teams could discuss their joint scientific projects.
