Blood donors in Delft must now ask for free cookies
Blood donors at some Sanquin locations, including Delft, now have to ask a volunteer for their free post-donation snack, after Sanquin said some visitors had taken more than they should.
The pink cookies, spiced biscuit dolls (speculaaspoppen), gingerbread and stroopwafels are no longer on the tables at the donor café in Delft run by Sanquin, the blood bank. Donors must now ask the volunteers for them.
The menu cards on the tables now read: "Heb je trek? Vraag onze vrijwilliger om je welverdiende snack" (Hungry? Ask our volunteer for your well-earned snack).
Sanquin's head office in Amsterdam acknowledges the complaints. A spokesperson said both donors and non-donors took "a bit more than you would reasonably expect".
The tighter policy is not compulsory. "Collection locations may decide for themselves how to handle this. They are in charge themselves," the spokesperson said. Snacks are still on the tables in Utrecht and in Den Haag. The main thing, he said, is that donors keep feeling welcome, even if they now have to ask for a pink cookie in some places.
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Sanquin
Sanquin is the Dutch blood bank, the organisation that collects blood, plasma and stem cells from donors in the Netherlands and supplies them to hospitals. Its donor cafés are the locations where people can have a drink and a snack after giving blood.