WAlthough my small, accident-prone, yes-I-catch-this-disease-prone body has been the recipient of other people’s blood donations on several occasions, I don’t usually qualify as I rarely reach the 50kg minimum weight to donate blood. I was never able to prepay it.
I like to think that my friend Madeleine, of far superior athletic build, is doing it on my behalf. I have known Madeleine for almost 20 years, but only recently found out that she has been one of the selfless people who have been donating blood religiously for decades.
“I’m doing it because I can…I’m healthy, so why not?” She shrugs. “And I know I’m helping someone directly. So how good is that?”
Now Australia needs people like Madeleine more than usual.
The Red Cross’ Lifeblood program is seeing a record number of no-shows, with half of the country’s blood drive appointments going unattended.
“We need 140,000 new blood donors in 2022 to meet the needs of patients across Australia, a 45% increase,” said Cath Stone, Lifeblood’s Executive Director of Donor Services. “Our existing donors cannot do this alone.”
It only takes 10 minutes to donate the standard 470ml of blood that can save up to three lives.
The Australian Red Cross has an online postcode lookup for the nearest donor centre here and an online proficiency test here.
The eligibility test is recommended as there are more than 360 reasons why someone may not be eligible to donate, relating to individual health conditions, medications, countries recently traveled, pregnancy and breastfeeding, sexual activity and age.
While becoming one of these donors is relatively easy — as long as you’re not scared of needles — Madeleine takes her commitment to another level.
On her half day off, she cycles to Sydney City Hall every other Friday and also donates her plasma.
The process takes about two hours. Her blood is drawn, placed in a centrifuge to allow the plasma to rise to the top for extraction, and then the rest is infused back into Madeleine.
This means she can donate every two weeks instead of the usual 12 weeks required between traditional blood donations.
For her it’s just “a little thing that I have to do without, something that I can easily imitate myself”.
So this year, roll up your sleeves and book a donation by calling 13 14 95 or downloading the free Donate Blood app. It may not be the easiest thing to do that day, but it will likely be the most impactful.
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