Fonkou Steve: Blood Choice Requires Access to Safe Transfusion Options
Fonkou Steve, Regional Representative for Africa- Global Blood Safety Working Party (Leadership board) at International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT), Chief Visionary Officer at Blood Track, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“The Right to Choose Is Meaningless Without Something to Choose From.
The recent decision by Jehovah’s Witnesses to allow individual members to decide whether to accept red cells, white cells, plasma and platelets is a significant development.
I welcome the greater space for individual choice and congratulate those involved in this change.
But as a transfusion professional, I cannot help asking:
What happens to the patient living in a setting where these components simply aren’t available?
Component therapy requires infrastructure—equipment, trained personnel, quality systems, reliable supply chains and adequate financing.
WHO reports that only 52% of blood collected in low-income countries is separated into components, compared with 98% in high-income countries.
So the conversation cannot stop at ‘Can a patient choose?’
We must also ask:
‘Does the health system give that patient anything to choose from?’
This is where equity in transfusion medicine becomes real.
For millions of people, particularly in low- and middle-income settings, the challenge remains much more fundamental: access to safe blood—sometimes even whole blood—when it is urgently needed.
Change is progressive.
Perhaps we will reach a future where safe, appropriate blood components are available wherever they are needed.
But we should move faster.
Because while systems evolve, patients continue to bleed, children continue to develop severe anaemia, and mothers continue to die when blood is unavailable.
The goal should not simply be freedom to choose.
It should be freedom to choose because safe options exist.”
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