By Nascer do Sol with Euronews
Published on
23/07/2025 – 9:55 GMT+2
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Low blood reserves have led one of Portugal’s largest hospitals to postpone some surgeries and appeal for donations to prevent the situation from worsening.
“Blood reserves are low, as they are in all hospitals in Portugal. This is a problem for the country,” said Álvaro Beleza, director of the blood service at the Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon.
Beleza added that the Portuguese Institute of Blood and Transplantation (IPST) is bringing in blood from the Azores and Madeira regions to try to mitigate the shortages.
According to Beleza, who was quoted by the Lusa news agency, donors have been asked to donate blood before they go on holiday, because “unfortunately the sick” and health problems “don’t go on holiday”.
“Nobody runs out of blood in the most emergent and serious situations – the most complex surgeries – but some are being postponed so that we can have blood for those more emergent situations,” he said.
Beleza explained that blood reserves are always low in summer, and the situation “gets worse every year” because there is a shortage of donors in Portugal and at European level, where there is a shortage of two million donations.
In the European Union, between 67,000 and 70,000 units of blood are needed per day to meet patients’ needs, but fewer than 5 per cent of eligible people donate blood, according to the umbrella group European Blood Alliance.
“Unfortunately, people donate less and less … and the regular donors, the donor associations, are an ageing generation who can no longer give blood from the age of 65, and so this is a daily struggle to get younger people to donate blood,” Beleza said.
The president of the IPST, Maria Antónia Escoval, said that from July 15 onwards, there is always “a situation of greater blood shortage” due to regular donors going on holiday.
The IPST publishes the stock situation online weekly so that regular and first-time donors can find out about the situation and donate blood.