One last 'bloody' hurdle for 2013
Australia still needs close to 3,000 blood donations over two days - New Year’s Eve and 2nd January - to ensure the constant supply of a product vital to treating cancer patients.
The blood bank has issued an urgent call for donations, as stocks threaten to run dry. Close to eight-hundred donations are needed in coming days, with New Year’s Eve a particular concern.
For information visit www.donateblood.com.au.
The new year brings an age-old problem for the Australian Red Cross blood service. There's a high demand for donations but a critically low number of donors.
On New Year’s Eve less than a third of appointments have been filled. On that day alone right across Victoria more than 500 blood donors are needed to donate blood and save lives.
Lives like seven-year-old Abbey Solo, who is undergoing chemotherapy as she battles leukemia for the second time. Dr Rachel Conyers from the Royal children’s hospital says ‘one of the side effects of chemotherapy is it suppresses the bone marrow's ability to make blood in the body and so it's imperative that we have the ability to give her blood products.’
In four years, Abbey has received three-hundred blood transfusions, each one a concern for her mother, Malia Silao.
‘I'm worried, thinking, you know, is there gonna be blood? is there gonna be enough? Especially around this time of year’, says Ms Silao.
While o negative blood will be particularly welcome, the blood service needs donations of all blood types, from regular donations and first timers and it's suggesting they make donating blood a new year's resolution.
The blood service has extended opening hours on New Year’s Eve in the hope people will take time out of their holidays to donate.
For information visit www.donateblood.com.au.
State-by-state appointment need – December 31st and January 2nd
NSW: Still needs 1,100 donors
VIC: Still needs 780 donors
QLD: Still needs 464 donors
SA: Still needs 114 donors, mainly on New Year’s Eve
WA: Still needs 340 donors
