Society

Italy has become one of Europe's leaders in blood donation

Italians are perhaps the best blood donors in Europe. According to the latest data provided by the National Association of Blood Donors (Associazione Volontari Italiani Sangue (AVIS)), about 80 percent of the inhabitants of the sunny country regularly and consistently help fellow citizens in need. These figures indicate that Italy is the second largest European country in the collection of donated blood.

The head of the association, Vincenzo Saturni, stated that the Basilicata region, which has more than 250 thousand blood donors (5.84 percent of the total), reached special indicators, followed by the Umbria region (5.44 percent ) and Emilia Romagna (5.43 percent). Saturni explained that these estimates relate to 2012 and they exceed previous indicators. So, for example, compared with 2011, the percentage of Italians who “shared” their blood slightly increased.

The National Association of Blood Donors, not without pride, notes that over 2012, more than two million blood transfusions were performed in the country.

The average age of donors willing to give away “red gold” averages between 36 and 45 years, which is equivalent to 27 percent of the total number of volunteers. The second age category, which has repeatedly helped those in need, is donors aged 46–55 years (23 percent). Least of all, young people under the age of 25 agree to donate: only 13 percent of young people decide to act as a blood donor.

The head of the association also said that most donors are men (67 percent). This trend, however, can be easily explained: males can donate blood up to four times a year, while women of childbearing age can only donate blood twice a year.

In Italy, AVIS was organized back in 1927 and since then the association has developed rapidly in the country. Today, AVIS offices are present in 3254 towns and villages in Italy, and also represent the interests of 71 percent of the country's donors. According to the head of the association, it is thanks to her that the country's national blood bank is completely filled.

Medicine in the country of wine and the sun has been developing rapidly over the years.

So, back in the last century, Italian doctors made a real breakthrough in this area: they spent first open heart surgery.

This momentous event has occurred. January 24, 1964, so a couple of days ago, the country's cardiac surgeons celebrated a peculiar anniversary of their achievement. Fifty years ago, an Italian surgeon, Padua professor Giuseppe Cevese, performed this complicated operation, as a result of which the patient’s congenital heart disease was successfully eliminated.

For several decades, Italian medicine has taken a huge step forward. In the very center where Chevese worked, more than forty thousand open-heart surgeries were performed. On the operating table were both adults and children. It was the Padua heart surgeons who managed to perform country's first heart transplant.

And last spring, Italian surgeons did the impossible at all: they performed open-heart surgery on a man who recently turned one hundred years old.

Doctors at Careggi Hospital, located near Florence (Firenze), decided to take such a desperate step in an attempt to save a pensioner who had a myocardial infarction. The surgery was successful, and the patient soon recovered. This was a real breakthrough in Italian medicine: Italy was the first country where a similar operation was performed on the heart of a patient of such an honorable age.

Popular Posts

Category Society, Next Article

Michelangelo's Pieta: history, features, how to visit
Cities of Italy

Michelangelo's Pieta: history, features, how to visit

St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican is rich in masterpieces: the popes did not stint, inviting the best masters of their time to decorate it. It’s better to visit the Basilica with a guide, as part of an organized tour or with our Rome Itinerary for 1 day, which tells you how to get a full-fledged audio guide cheaper than in the Cathedral.
Read More
Rome in February
Cities of Italy

Rome in February

Most tourists consider the last month of winter not the best time to get to know the Eternal City - they are afraid of the unpredictable weather characteristic of Rome in February. But those who were not afraid of the changeable weather in Rome in February, and visited the Italian capital in the offseason, confidently say that this time is much better for sightseeing and walking around the city than a hot summer.
Read More
Rome in November
Cities of Italy

Rome in November

November in Rome is a real autumn with clouds, rains, winds, fallen leaves and rare sunny days. But the dull weather in Rome in November does not scare tourists at all, because there are so many beautiful and interesting places in the city, even adverse weather conditions can not spoil the pleasure of visiting them.
Read More
Outlets in Rome: where to go shopping
Cities of Italy

Outlets in Rome: where to go shopping

The capital of Italy is attractive to tourists not only as the center of the Catholic world or the city of many historical and architectural monuments, but also as a place where you can successfully combine business with pleasure. A vacation in Rome is not only an interesting excursion vacation, but also an excellent shopping, the result of which, depending on the degree of enthusiasm, becomes an updated or completely new wardrobe.
Read More