30 minutes out of your life to save a life (National Blood Services (NBS))

Member Name: Fiver29

Product:	National Blood Services (NBS)
Date:	01/11/09 (42 review reads)
Rating:

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Giving blood is simple and only takes up a few minutes of your time, and could help to save someone's life, so why not give it a go?

== The Procedure ==

I've given blood at several venues around the country and the seating arrangements and bed arrangements are different in each, so I will just use the arrangements of my home town as an example.


Every so often the Blood Service take over a meeting room at our local arts centre. As you walk in you're faced with a few rows of chairs, here you can fill in a form with all your detail while you wait to see the first of the healthcare professionals. These people will normally ask you about any trips abroad you may have taken. Your sexual orientation, drug use and recent operations. This is to screen out any high risk groups. The will also do a thumb prick test while you're there, this is a test for anemia (to see if you have enough iron in your blood), if your blood doesn't pass this test you will have to go home, but you will get a good mark on your blood donor record to say that you've been and tried to give blood.


If you pass all the tests you'll be directed to another waiting area whilst you wait for a bed to become free. Eventually a nurse will show you to a bed and ask you to make yourself comfortable. Don't get too excited though, they're not nice comfy beds they're the same solid beds you'll find in a doctors surgery. The next bit is the easy bit, all you have to do is to lie back with your arm relaxing over the side of the bed whilst the nurse inserts the needle and starts collecting the blood. This takes 10-20 minutes depending on the blood flow.

Once your pint of blood (or whatever the metric equivalent is) is full the nurse will remove all the paraphernalia and walk you over to the plaster area. If you feel faint at this point, there are some spare beds for people to rest on for a few extra minutes. At the plaster area a nurse will make sure the blood has stopped flowing and stick a plaster over the puncture mark, they should and usually do ask if you are allergic to plasters, and if you are they'll use an alternative.

Once you've got the all clear you can move over to the W.R.V.S. ladies, who will make you a cup or tea and a biscuit (or orange juice if you prefer). You can wait as long as you want, but most people just drink up and leave.

== My Thoughts ==

Giving blood is a really simple process and I can't see any reason why people wouldn't do it, unless you're a Jehovah's Witness of course, because I'm sure if they or a loved one needed an urgent transfusion then they wouldn't refuse on the basis that they haven't got 30 minutes to spare or they have a needle phobia.

Several times I've had to go after the thumb prick test (which is the most painful bit by the way) because I've been anaemic, which is really disappointing, but at least then I know and can get some iron tablets.

My blood takes after me in being miserly, it barely flows at all sometimes, so 9 times out of 10 the nurses have to give me a squeezey ball to manipulate in order to get my blood to flow quicker. But then it takes after a tube of Pringles, and once it's popped it just won't stop, and it takes a little while for a clot to form (I presume it's a clot, of course it might be the vein closing up) before it stops.

Then I'm one of those people who sups and goes, I'm afraid I'm not into idle chit chat with people I don't know and will never see again.

The whole process is not completely altruistic because you get a nice fuzzy feeling inside thinking that you might just have helped save someone's life. I like to think it'll be the life of some poor innocent toddler rather than a criminal cut from a prison brawl!!

== Whose blood do they need ==

The simple answer is everyone's. Unfortunately some people have to turn everything into a competition and say their blood group is rare, so theirs is more important. In fact the blood they require most is common old O postive, this is because it's the only blood type that can be given to almost everyone no matter what their blood group is. In comparison AB blood can only be given to AB recipients, and since AB is the rarest, AB blood helps the least amount of people.

== Controversy ==

Many people get upset by the refusal of the Blood Service to allow homosexual males to donate. They argue that HIV and AIDS are no longer homosexual diseases, however it's not just because of HIV and AIDS, Hep C is also more easily transmitted through anal sex that virginal sex and therefore male homosexuals are a higher risk group. And whilst this may seem unfair, I'm sure most fair minded people would baulk at the thought of a wee baby being accidentally infected with Hep C just to satisfy political correctness (yes there are tests, but as we all know the testers are only human and can make mistakes, far better to reduce the risk further IMHO).

Summary: Highly recommended