Call for donations as blood runs dry
Bunbury Blood Donor Centre staff fear they will not have enough blood in stock during the Easter and Anzac Day holiday period with more than a 50 per cent shortfall in appointments from today to April 24.
The Bunbury centre has the lowest number of bookings in the State and needs to fill about 100 more appointments to cater for the two, consecutive long-weekends.
Red Cross Blood Service communications adviser Jessica Willet urged Bunbury residents to factor donations into their holiday plans.
“The biggest users of donated blood are cancer patients at 34 per cent, ” Ms Willet said.
“We need to make sure our stocks are full and we collect all the blood we need so that it is available for whoever needs it, be it road accident victims, cancer patients or premature babies born over Easter.”
Centre manager Sue McKenzie said she had not seen such a low number of bookings at the centre since she started in 2009.
“While we are closed on the two public holidays that week, we have additional staff working on April 22 and 24 in order to compensate for Easter Monday and Anzac Day, ” she said.
Ashley and Melanie Cox realised the importance of blood and plasma donations when their daughter Kimberley was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in 2011.
“Kimberley needed to have both plasma and whole blood transfusions, ” Mrs Cox said.
“She was so pale sometimes that her lips would be blue — without the transfusions she wouldn’t have been able to get by.”
Last week Mr Cox donated blood and plasma for the 117th time, a tradition he began long before Kimberley was diagnosed.
“I figured that if anything ever happened to me I wanted to be in credit, ” Mr Cox said.
“The family is up to about 400 donations between us.”
