Op-ed by Dr Arvind Mathur, WHO Representative
Dili: In the corridors of any hospital in Timor Leste, the most frightening words a family sometimes hears are not always a diagnosis. Sometimes, they are far more urgent: “Go and find blood. Find a brother, a cousin, a neighbour, someone with the right blood type.” And so, the family scatters to do what the hospital cannot do alone: find blood in time.
This is the unseen reality behind many medical emergencies in Timor-Leste, and behind routine surgeries too. Every day, the blood bank at HNGV, referral hospitals, and often, even Community Health Centres field urgent requests from health workers for patients whose lives depend on timely transfusions. Among them are mothers in difficult labour, people rescued from road accidents and patients undergoing surgery.
For each of them, treatment, and sometimes survival, may depend on blood, a precious resource that cannot be manufactured in a laboratory or factory. It cannot be ordered at the last minute and expected to appear. It comes from people. It comes from planning. And it comes from a culture that recognises blood donation not only as an emergency response, but as an act of shared responsibility.
That is why the theme of this year’s World Blood Donor Day, “One Drop of Humanity. Give Blood. Save Lives,” speaks so directly to Timor-Leste. It calls on the country to move from blood given in emergencies to a steady culture of regular, voluntary giving. The safest and most dependable supply, everywhere, comes from unpaid donors who return again and again.
The numbers show why this matters.
According to the WHO benchmark, at least one percent of the population should donate blood annually to sustain a safe and reliable blood supply. For Timor-Leste, this means a minimum of 13,000 donors a year.
However, figures from the HNGV Blood Bank show that only 7,204 people came forward to donate blood in 2025, about 55% of the minimum. That leaves the country short by nearly 6,000 donors a year, simply to reach the threshold of a safe and reliable supply.
The gap grows more troubling when you consider the nature of donations. Most of those who gave were replacement donors rather than regular voluntary ones. Replacement donation means families are asked to find someone to donate blood when a patient already needs it. Every donor deserves gratitude, but this model places enormous pressure on families at the worst possible moment. It also leaves the blood supply unpredictable.
A safe health system cannot run on panic; it must run on preparedness. A steady stream of voluntary donors is among the strongest forms of preparedness the country can build. Every blood donation reflects the essence of our common humanity, solidarity, compassion, and care for one another.
Building this culture also means strengthening the system around it. Working with the Ministry of Health, WHO has supported efforts to put a mobile blood donation van on the road, taking blood collection to communities, campuses and workplaces rather than waiting for donors to come to the hospital.
WHO has also supplied equipment and laboratory materials to collect, screen, store and transfuse blood safely, while supporting training for technicians and health workers who recruit donors, separate blood into components, manage storage and support safe transfusion.
Our shared vision with the Ministry of Health is a coordinated national blood system where safe blood is available whenever and wherever it is needed. But even the strongest system cannot function without donors.
Blood donation is one of the most direct acts of solidarity a person can offer another. A single donation, taking only an hour from a person’s day, can help a patient survive, return home, support a family and rejoin the community.
No institution can close this gap alone. The missing 6,000 donors must come from communities and universities, workplaces, faith-based organisations, youth groups, the private sector, and every citizen who believes that no family should have to search for blood in fear.
Thirteen thousand donors a year is a modest ask for a nation of more than a million people, and well within Timor-Leste’s reach. What is needed now is a sustained national effort to make voluntary blood donation routine, wider awareness of the life-saving impact of blood and plasma donation, and greater recognition of voluntary donors.
One drop of humanity can save a life, strengthen a community, and inspire hope.
Give blood before there is an emergency. Give regularly. Give voluntarily.