Asklemmy

43857 readers

1777 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

159

What's your stance on "donating" blood plasma? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

110 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've had a little of a debate with a commenter recently where they've argued that "donating" (selling, in their words, because you can get money for it) your blood plasma is a scam because it's for-profit and you're being exploited.

Now, I only have my German lense to look at this, but I've been under the impression that donating blood, plasma, thrombocytes, bone marrow, whatever, is a good thing because you can help an individual in need. I get that, in the case of blood plasma, the companies paying people for their donations must make some kind of profit off that, else they wouldn't be able to afford paying around 25€ per donation. But I'm not sure if I'd call that a scam. People are all-around, usually, too selfish and self-centered to do things out of the goodness of their hearts, so offering some form of compensation seems like a good idea to me.

In the past, I've had my local hospital call me asking for a blood donation, for example, because of an upcoming surgery of a hospitalised kid that shares my blood group. I got money for that too.

What are your guys' thoughts on the matter? Should it be on donation-basis only and cut out all incentives - monetary or otherwise? Is it fine to get some form of compensation for the donation?

Very curious to see what you think

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Depending on what you donate, you may have to wait 3 months between one donation and the next, we often donate whole blood; Plasma donations must be at least two weeks apart I think. I'm pretty sure there must be a limit to the numbers of days off you can get. It's all managed through the national mutual assitance org, the employer must seek reimbursement through them as they would for sick days.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm assuming you're in Germany? So envious of your labor rights there and in the broader EU.

We were allowed to donate plasma eight times per month. $25 first donation of the week $35 second.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Italy, actually. It's bonkers to me how the labor movement, so strong in the USA at the start of the past century, is so weak nowadays.

For example it's outrageous to me that you hold voting on a work day while not making it a national holiday or day off of some sort.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The thing about making it a holiday is interesting. Everyone in the service industry would be forced to work, probably extra hours as well. Because here any holiday means people who are lucky enough to be middle class and above will be consuming, especially eating out or ordering food in.

I'd prefer mandatory voting like Australia but with ballots mailed to everyone automatically. Make it as easy as possible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Idk, we've got Ferragosto for example as a national holiday where EVERYTHING is closed..