Blood stocks run low: the appeal that skips Molise's empty towns

Italy's national blood centre issued an urgent appeal for donors this week, warning that stocks were running critically low nationwide, with hospitals in Lazio, Campania and Sicily worst affected, according to The Local Italy. The summer months traditionally strain supplies as regular donors travel and accidents rise, but this year's shortfall has prompted an unusually public plea.

The appeal names the regions in greatest difficulty — all of them in the centre and south — yet it does not mention Molise, the smallest region by population, where the problem takes a different shape. With roughly 289,000 residents and one of Italy's oldest age profiles, the donor pool here is not merely depleted by summer holidays; it is shrinking year by year as young people leave and the remaining population ages beyond the donation age limits.

Local transfusion centres depend on a steady rotation of donors, and in towns of a few hundred inhabitants the loss of even a handful of regulars can force hospitals to postpone scheduled surgeries. The national appeal, aimed at the general public, may reach the cities where the need is most acute, but it does little to solve the structural shortage that hollowed-out interior regions face.