Health Ministry has yet to change a requirement that automatically excludes many gay and bisexual men.
Since the number of potential donors is lower during the holiday period, Slovakia is facing a shortage of blood. However, not everyone who would like to donate is eligible to do so. Many gay and bisexual men continue to be automatically excluded from donating, reports the news site Aktuality.sk.
Health Minister Kamil Šaško (Hlas) previously claimed that the issue was “not on the table”, but regulations governing blood donation have recently changed without altering the current situation. As a result, even a gay man in a committed, monogamous relationship cannot donate blood.
The reason is a questionnaire issued by the National Transfusion Service (NTS), which every potential donor is required to complete. It forms part of the mandatory examination before donation and contains 23 general questions, as well as one additional question exclusively for men (question 24) and two for women (questions 25–26).
Question 24 asks men whether they have had sexual contact with another man in the past 12 months. This means that sexually active gay and bisexual men are not allowed to donate blood, including those in long-term monogamous relationships.
