This 2024, more than 70,000 people admitted to hospital centers in Catalonia will need some transfusion of blood, plasma or platelets from blood donation. Which means that around 260,000 donations are required to cover these patient needs. To put in context, in 2023 there were a total of 247,677 donations.
To this end, this Thursday, the 11th and until next January 19, the Marathon of Blood Donors of Catalonia will take place, which under the motto “Fer-ho entre tots es molt nostre”, will seek to increase donations and restore blood reserves. that have been affected by the Christmas festivities.
In a press release published by the Banc de Sang i Teixits, it is explained that it is expected that during the year around 10,000 people will donate to the main Catalan hospitals and in other special campaigns such as the Center de Cultura d’El Born or the Avenida Palace hotel. On the other hand, taking into account the rest of the collections distributed throughout the Catalan territory, the number of people expected rises to 70,000.
This special blood donation campaign will begin this Thursday at 10:00 a.m. at the monumental Avenida Palace hotel in an event that can be seen on an Instagram live from the Banc de Sang i Teixits account.
Likewise, on Saturday, January 13, the Born Cultural Center will also host a special blood drive, in which different cultural entities such as human towers, a batucada or a musical bingo will participate. Furthermore, in solidarity with Mataró, several town halls will light up red during the night of the same Saturday.
For this year, the initiative promotes the construction of the first ‘Pilar Casteller Digital’ to be built in Catalonia, which will be permanently located in four Catalan municipalities: Barcelona (Plaça Catalunya), Girona (Plaça del Vi), Lleida (Plaça de la Paeria) and Tarragona (Plaça de la Font).
This monument will be inaugurated on Monday, January 22 in Tarragona and will have a code that will allow it to be scanned with a mobile phone. The construction will be filled with red with each donation made throughout Catalonia during the first six months of the year, until June 14, 2024, coinciding with World Blood Donor Day. The project will be completed with the entire monument dyed completely red, with a planned milestone of 130,000 donations.