Stem cell donations started to be collected at Erzurum City Hospital

Hospital Chief Physician Assoc. Prof. Dr. İbrahim Hakkı Tör, speaking to reporters at the hospital's Transfusion Center, said that stem cell donations began to be collected in 2014 through the Ministry of Health.

Tör, who explained that stem cell collection for non-relative transplantation is done in other cities such as Ankara and Istanbul, and that donors are taken to these cities through the Red Crescent, but that this is very difficult, stated that as a result of the Ministry of Health authorizing Erzurum City Hospital and Erzurum Red Crescent Regional Directorate this year, they opened up space in the hospital's transfusion center and started collecting stem cells from donors there, and said, "We have 7 more patients in line, and with the stem cells that our first donor will give, our child will come to life in one of our cities."

Tör stated that the Red Crescent and the Ministry of Health are the pioneers in this work and that they will collect donors at the hospital and contribute to the process.

Turkish Red Crescent Eastern Anatolia Regional Blood Center Director Dr. Abdullah Üzer also stated that the duty of providing blood and blood products for the country belongs to the Turkish Red Crescent, and said, "Before our Ministry of Health gave us this duty, the plans were generally in the form of planned stem cells, like relatives, close friends or planned pregnancies. Non-relative stem cell donations were not actually done much in our country and this was a big deficiency."

Üzer stated that the stem cell donation pool is a global pool and that donation processes are carried out with confidentiality and security, and that provided that the stem cell donor accepts, it can provide hope to people in need in the world.

Üzer explained that not every center has the capacity to collect stem cell donations and that matching donors have to go to different cities for this purpose, and noted the following:

"Matched donors had to go to distant centers such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. This could negatively affect the donors' working lives. Sometimes, donors hesitated to go to another city due to the health aspect of the business. Therefore, having a collection center in the city they live in minimizes all the negativities in terms of losing the donor or rejecting the donation. It also made our job easier and we can reach the people in need in a short time. Hopefully, donors will no longer have to go to another city for stem cell collection in our region and our patients will find healing."