This 14 June is not just England’s first match with Italy, as countries around the world celebrate World Blood Donor Day (WBDD). It was established in 2004, serves to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to thank blood donors for their voluntary life-saving gifts of blood.
This year the focus of the WBDD 2014 campaign is “Safe blood for saving mothers”. The goal of the campaign is to increase awareness about why it is critical to have safe blood to prevent maternal deaths.
As an ex-theatre nurse for 10 years, I am fully aware how important it is to have blood available on site. It is literally a life or death matter. Sometimes, we are so desperate that we had to beg from hospital to hospital for a bag of blood to save a life. A small bag of blood can make a huge difference in a person’s life. We are really grateful that volunteers give their time and blood to save life. So I hope you too will volunteer to donate blood if you can.
I am extremely proud of Mr C as he recently started to donate blood. He is fully aware of how important to give blood as he saw me lose a lot of blood during child birth. Six years ago, we had our first child, Mr K. Unfortunately he had his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and they needed to get him out asap. After the forceps birth, I lost a huge amount of blood and they took two hours to stitch me up as they could not find the bleeding point. My haemoglobin dropped to 6.6 g/dL and they requested to give me a blood transfusion which I refused. I knew that it would help me to recover more quickly. But I also knew that someone out there needed it more than I did. Also if I ever get received blood, I would not be able to donate blood again.
Since 18 years old, I have been donating blood every six months while I was in Singapore until one year, I took on anti-malaria medication while I went to Thailand for a charity trip. It seems that if you take certain medication, you are not allowed to donate blood. Do check this list if you could give blood or you could call Give Blood 24 hour helpline on 0300 123 23 23 to check.
Disclosure: This is a collaboration with Benenden to promote World Blood Donor Day. Image used with permission.
