WATCH: Health Minister Chris Fearne Says Gay Men Will Soon Be Able To Donate Blood
Minister for Health Chris Fearne has announced governmental plans to give gay men the ability to donate blood in Malta.
“Gay men who have sexual relations with other men, statistically and unfortunately, have a greater risk of certain conditions which can be passed through the blood. We’ve released a tender that’s been written over the last few months to buy new apparatus to be able to undertake more detailed tests on everyone’s donated blood, not just gay men’s blood. Therefore certain categories that couldn’t donate before can now start donating, among them men who have relationships with other men,” said the Health Minister.
Saying that the blood bank of Malta had certain categories of people who couldn’t give blood, Dr Fearne said that gay men would be able to give blood following the installation of new apparatus that would be able to test donated blood to a more detailed level.
“When the tender is passed, the new technology will be brought in and there’ll be training of the personnel and then, within a few months, gay people will no longer be among those people that cannot donate blood,” he continued.
The national call for gay men to be allowed to donate blood was renewed after a recent bus tragedy that occurred in Żurrieq. Many gay men wanted to donate blood but found themselves banned from donating, even when the need for blood was urgent.
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