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Factual: Health & Wellbeing

25/02/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Blood For Blood

Why are black and Asian people in Britain reluctant to act as blood and organ donors?

Beverley De-Gale investigates the disparity between the number of black and Asian people in need of transplants and the number of people from those communities who act as donors.

What lies behind the reluctance of black and Asian people in Britain to act as blood and organ donors? Statistically, they are far less likely to come forward as donors than their white compatriots. The oft repeated suggestion is that there is a greater fear and suspicion of the medical profession by these groups. But is that really the case? Might the answers be cultural, religious or stem from a lack of awareness?

The problem is made even more stark by figures which show that black and Asian people comprise a quarter of the people on the waiting list for kidney transplants for example, far in excess of their percentage of the population. 

In Blood for Blood, Beverley De-Gale examines the imbalance between donors and recipients in the black and Asian populations. 

Beverley De-Gale's son, Daniel, was in need of a bone marrow transplant and held out hope for several years before finding a donor but sadly died from non-related complications in 2008. But the years of anxious waiting on a list exposed a truth: the pool of black donors was virtually dry. 

In the wake of the death of her son, Beverley De-Gale asks just what is behind the conundrum of Britain's black and Asian population's disinclination to volunteer as blood and organ donors.

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