Constituent Assembly of Donors’ Organization in Mahiliou

On 16 February the constituent assembly of the donor’s organization Kroplia Zhyttsia (Drop of Life) took place in Belarus. The ten founders of the organization adopted the association’s charter and decided to pass to Minsk city executive committee documents for its registration.

Ihar Kavalenka was elected the chairman of the NGO.

‘We will be a donors’ trade union. We will defend the rights and legal interests of donors. There are many problems in the Belarusian donorship or blood and plasma, but two of them are most serious. The donors have been deprived of important compensations, 50% discount for medicines and free prosthetic dentistry.

Besides, donors often fall victims to wrong diagnoses. They are prohibited to donate blood. Then the mistakes are found, but the people are not rehabilitated in their donor rights. In Belarus there are no mechanisms for solving this problem. Such donors need to be rehabilitated. Nobody deels with it,’ said Ihar Kavalenka in his interview with RFE/RL.

The organization intends to operate on the territory of Mahiliou and Mahiliou district.

In June a group of Mahiliou donors held a weeklong preventive strike against the liquidation of social guarantees. The donors managed to preserve 40% pension bonus and the possibility choose the time for vacations at work. Besides, only Mahiliou donors managed to protect their right to free ride in transport in Mahiliu city.

There about 5 000 donors in the database of Mahiliou hemotransfusion station, but since 2004 their number has been decreasing by 8% per year.