Clock is ticking for Rachele (3) due to long waiting times for stem cell donors
Three-year-old Rachele from Pittem suffers from a rare bone marrow disease. Now that the treatments are not successful enough, a suitable donor is being sought worldwide. In the meantime, more than 22,000 people have registered as donors, but it does not stop there. According to the procedure in our country, you must also visit a donor doctor after registration.
Do not change procedure
Intermediate steps such as these slow down the search for a suitable donor for Rachele enormously. The girl has already undergone 90 blood transfusions since October last year, but they cannot continue to administer them. So time is running out. The parents of the toddler therefore hoped that the Cabinet of Public Health and the Red Cross would change the procedure, but in vain. The current procedure ensures that each registration actually provides a good donor, they say. In our neighboring countries, the procedure is much faster. There you already enter that donor bank after a simple test with a cotton swab.
The Red Cross is deploying extra people to process all 22,000 registrations faster.