Blood Donation: What You Need to Know
For those in the medical industry, the possibility of saving someone’s life is a very real possibility. For the rest of us, we assume heroes and life savers are left for televisions and the big screens. Not anymore. It’s time we celebrate those everyday heroes that selflessly go above and beyond to make a difference.
The fact is, saving someone’s life may involve sitting and relaxing in comfort and can take less than an hour. Saving a life is making the decision to donate blood.
Why donate?
Current statistics have found that 1 in 3 Australians will require blood at some point in their life. Those are some worrying figures – especially considering that only 1 in 30 people in Australia will choose to donate.
For those who do donate, they have an opportunity to change or save the lives of 3 people, all from one simple donation.
What can you donate?
Donors have a choice of 3 different donations: whole blood, plasma and platelets. Your blood type will help determine which option may be best for you, and it’s important to keep in mind that you need to have donated whole blood in the last two years in order to start donating plasma or platelets.
The process times vary slightly depending on the type of donation you choose: whole blood takes 15 minutes to donate and 45 minutes for the appointment, plasma and platelets take 45 minutes to donate and an hour and a half for the appointment.
How does it work?
Every day, more than 5,000 people
In conclusion, there are many reason why donating blood is something everyone. In the United States an average of 40,000 units of blood are needed every day. Around 60% of population will need blood at some time in their lives, yet only around 5% of the population will actually donate blood. If all eligible donors will donate on a regular basis, which I six to four times a year, all blood needs would be meet and blood shortages would be a thing of the
Since that time donation has been the only way to increase the current supply of transplantable organs. Some people are uncomfortable with the idea of organ donation due to misconceptions and lack of knowledge. In fact, organ transplant recipient Dr. Phil H. Berry, Jr. points out that there would be less deaths of people waiting for transplants, “if Americans would overcome their reluctance to become organ donors” (29). Organ donation whether it is upon your death or giving a part of a liver or one kidney while you are alive is a charitable gesture towards your fellow man and could give meaning to the end of your life. The mere act of donating could bring more peace to your loved ones at the time of your death and as a result, you could give
Please try and consider the following situation. You’re sitting in an emergency room, waiting for your dad to awake after falling into liver failure, costing him to need a new liver. Not knowing if it’s possible, crossing your fingers. You wish you could help, but you can’t. Someone else can. An organ donor. According to organdonor.gov, about 116,000 U.S. citizens are waiting on the organ transplant list as of August 2017. To put that number into perspective, that’s more than double the amount of people that can fit into Yankee Stadium. And to make matters worse, 20 people each day die waiting for a transplant.(organdonor.gov) Organ donation can offer patients a second chance at life and provides
Some people strongly believe that donating blood is bad, but what people don’t know is that it actually has surprisingly good benefits like reducing the risk of cancer, burning calories, and even saving someone’s life, so everyone who has the opportunity to give should.
The Red Cross provides blood for patients in approximately 2,600 hospitals across the U.S. The Red Cross makes blood available to any patient who needs it — patients are not required to find donors to replace the blood they use allowing the patient and their family to focus on recovery. Eighty percent of the blood donations given to the Red Cross are collected at mobile blood drives set up at community organizations, companies, high schools, and colleges, places of worship or military installations. The remaining 20 percent are collected at Red Cross donation centers. The American Red Cross works with more than 50,000 blood drive sponsors each year to hold more than 200,000 blood drives, providing convenient locations for people to give
I’ve done this many times before and it is really easy however, my first time donating I was a little apprehensive, I’m a baby when it comes to pain and wasn’t sure what would actually happen. The process is pretty simple; you answer a questionnaire to see if you are eligible to donate, have you blood pressure taken, and then are given a finger prick to test your
Beginning with the Mid-America Transplant, they work the organ and tissue donations. This organization is in place save lives, one organ donator can save up to eight lives, eight lives that can have a second chance at life. With tissue donations, it can save up to 50 to 100 individuals. There is a waiting list for people who are waiting for organ and tissue donations, in 2005 there was 80,000 people on that list and now there are over 120,000 individuals who need organs and/or tissue. Jonette told us that one person is added to that list every 15 minutes and one person dies every 10 minutes.
We can all become literally a life saver. The Coalition on Donation website states on donor can save up to eight people and help more than fifty others. For example, a donated Kidney can free two people from dialysis. Your heart could beat for someone else. Your corneas could give sight to two people. Organ donation is not about death, but rather life.
All it takes is one checkmark in a box and eight lives could be saved. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, one organ donor can save up to eight lives. Currently about 123,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant and every ten minutes a new name is added to the waiting list. On average, seventy-nine people receive organ donations daily; however, about twenty-two people die each day because of the shortage of organ donors. Donating organs is a lot more than a check in the box, it could change the way a person lives their life forever. Not to mention, organ donors do save lives. Even though, there are practiced unethical organ donor procedures that occur and there is the possibility of a procedure going wrong,
One single person can potentially save up to eight people’s lives by donating their vitally important organs - one heart, two lungs, two kidneys, one liver, one pancreas and intestines. Extending to tissue donation, one person can save up to 50 people’s lives by donating tissues such as skin, bones, corneas, blood vessels, heart valves and tendons. Receiving an organ not only impacts the life of the recipient, but also impacts the people in the recipient’s life.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, every ten minutes a name is added to the National Transplant waiting list. As of December 1, 2015, there are 122,477 people that need a lifesaving operation and are on the transplant waiting list. While on the waiting list, there is an average of 22 people that die every day. So far, only 23,134 transplants have been done in 2015. (U.S. Depart.of Health and Human Services) This incredibly low number of transplants is why more people should become organ donors. Choosing to become an organ donor provides the opportunity to save up to eight lives and improve the quality of life for many others with tissue donation. An organ donor can also provide comfort to the grieving family: the loss of the loved one will be helping others to live. Becoming an organ donor is much easier than many think. The decision can literally be done in just minutes.
The topic of blood donation well-researched, with strategies having been devised to try and increase donation rates all over the world. Australia faces a challenging set of circumstances, in which remuneration for donation is illegal (ARCBS, 2013). It is thought this may be a contributing factor to the poor repeat donation rates in youth demographics, for whom altruism is no longer a primary driving factor when considering donation (Russell-Bennett, Hartel, Previte & Russel, 2012).
62 Griffith University students, 35 female and 27 male age 18 – 30 were asked to participate in our survey. Respondents had to fill out 20 questions which included demographic questions on age, gender and nationality as well as questions regarding awareness, attitude and actual behaviour towards blood donation. The quantitative data from our survey was entered into
Blood is a liquid that is supplemented by what you drink; it stands to reason that if you drink a lot of fluid, you will have a well supplied amount of blood. Even though donating only takes a pint at a time, it is always wise to drink water all day prior to and all day of donating.
Due to the required age, blood donation has always eluded me. That is until the stars aligned in the most perfect opportunity. The passing of another year for myself, finally at an eligible age for donation: 16, and the assignment of a project that required me to do something of which I have never done. Unwaivered in my resolve to donate, enthusiastic about the thoughts of saving lives, and having nerves of steel when thinking of the steel needle that would be injected into my arm. That is until the day of my donation.