Blood Donation to Gain Recognition as Volunteer Work

Blood donation will be recognized as volunteer work from next month, the Health and Welfare Ministry said Sunday.

“To promote blood donation, we will devise a regulation that considers blood donation volunteer work by this month and implement it in July,” the ministry said.

According to the Republic of Korea National Red Cross, the share of individual blood donors rose from 41.9 percent in 2003 to 62.8 percent last year. The plan is to raise the figure to 70 percent this year.

The Public Administration and Safety Ministry decided not to recognize blood donation as volunteer work in April, when an implementation plan on compensation for volunteer work was devised, a move opposed by the ministry.

Last year, 2.57 million people donated blood in the country. Kim Kang-ryp, director of the ministry’s industrial healthcare policy bureau, said, “Collective blood donation at schools declined due to the spread of the H1N1 influenza virus, but the number of blood donors increased 10 percent from last year due to growing awareness of social work.”

To mark World Blood Donor Day Monday, the Health Ministry will give official commendations to 28 people, including Cho Yeong-gil, 51, a volunteer worker at the Red Cross, and Choi Myeong, 37, who has donated blood 239 times since his second year of high school.

viyonz@donga.com