I just came from donating one of the three pints of blood I can give each year and got chatting with one of the staff. Out of curiosity I asked what proportion of the population give blood these days. Go on, play along, take a guess. I was mentally prepared for a fifth to a third of the population, somewhere in that region. Her answer literally floored me...
6%
No joke, only between 4-6% of adults in this country give blood. I could not believe it. Just to give you the scale of the issue, the Welsh Blood Service needs 400+ donations per day just to keep things ticking over. Blood stocks do not last and during certain times (winter, sports events etc) they plummet. There is clearly a massive problem with recruitment of donors. All I can do is my tiny part. I therefore beg you all. Whatever country you are in. Give blood. Go to the National Blood Service (or welsh/scottish) and register. If you stub your toe today you will experiance ten times more pain than you will ever experiance at a donation. You can only donate 3-4 times a year. At roughly an hour for donation that is just 0.0003% of your entire year. You CAN be bothered with that. Drop the excuses, shelve the fears and donate. Please, for me.
Now, Mrs PVP has an unexpected long weekend from work and I have decided to join her in joyous relaxation (well, sorting the house really) so regular updates will be back next week. Have a pleasant weekend and
TTFN
I would love to donate blood more often but some of the countries I've lived in will not allow me to donate (because I'm clearly an insane bovine having lived here through the BSE crisis).
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame but hopefully I can find a way around it.
Thumbs up to you :-)
Pete
Even though I don't live in the UK anymore, I was born during the BSE outbreak so no donations for now (I'm not allowed). But thanks foe the post and I sure think that this message should be spread!
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your week-end!