Staying with the blood shortage and the problem is creating difficulties for patients waiting for surgery. But experts say they have ideas on how it can be resolved.

Experts say, the biggest problem for blood donation in China is that the collection mechanism doesn't have a regular number of donors.

Blood collections mainly depend on street collection vehicles, which are affected by the time of year and number of passers-by. This means the amount of blood collected can vary greatly, especially in cold weather or if students have gone for their summer vacation.

To encourage more people to donate blood, people who have donated blood and their relatives can receive transfusions free of charge. But, apart from that, more still needs to be done.

Liu Jiang, Deputy Head of China Blood Transfusion Assoc., said, "We must also make use of the technologies available, like websites, short messages, and the 3G video system. In the future, we can contact more blood donors in this way."

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health says some local authorities pay less attention to the voluntary blood donation system. For example, the layout of blood collection vehicles is not reasonable and they do not make enough effort to encourage more people to give blood.

This means some people don't fully understand the blood donor system.

Chen Zhu, Head of Ministry of Health, said, "I think it very important to do more work to encourage more people to take part in giving blood, reassuring them that donations do not harm their health, and all the collection equipment is safe."

In fact, a 20 to 40 centiliters of blood donation uses up less than ten percent of someone's total amount of blood, causing no harm at all.

It also strengthens people' blood-making function and speeds up their metabolism, preventing heart diseases.

In this way, blood donations not only benefit patients but also the blood donors themselves.