Blood Services

One of Magen David Adom’s foremost tasks is the maintenance of modern and effective blood services for the country, a duty promulgated in the Magen David Adom Law enacted by the Knesset in 1960.

MDA’s National Blood Services, in carrying out this task, have steadily widened the scope and sophistication of their activities for the benefit of the entire population of Israel. These activities are carried out by three bodies: “The Blood Recruitment Division,” which is in charge of the national blood insurance program; “The Joseph Handleman Blood Bank” and the “Erna and Dr. Henry Marx MDA Blood Fractionation Institute.”

More than 280,000 units of fresh blood are collected annually. Magen David Adom supplies 97 percent of the country’s total needs and 100 percent of the needs of the Israel Defense Forces. All blood contributions are made by volunteer donors, without remuneration. Spearheading contributions are the members of the MDA Blood Donors Association, each of whom donates blood at least twice a year; members having blood of a rare type are on call for any emergency need. Every donor is automatically covered by MDA’s Blood Insurance, which entitles the donor him/herself and the members if his or her immediate family to receive a future credit of unlimited amounts of fresh blood for transfusions, in case of need, during the year.

The fresh blood, brought to the MDA National Blood Service center in Ramat Gan, is sorted for blood groups and is tested and screened to ensure that it is free of any diseases, including hepatitis and AIDS. The fresh blood and its components are supplied by the MDA Blood Bank to the country’s hospitals and to the Israel Defense Forces according to their ongoing needs, and blood reserves are stored for emergencies.

An important task of the MDA National Blood Service Center is the separation, by centrifugation, of fresh blood into thrombocytes, cryoprecipitate and plasma. The thrombocytes are vital in the treatment of malignant diseases and cryoprecipitate is supplied to hemophiliacs.

At the Erna and Dr. Henry Marx MDA Blood Fractionation Institute, protein components are produced for therapeutic use: Normal Serum Albumin, given to accident victims to prevent shock, and Gammaglobulin.