ON-GOING campaigns from the South African National Blood Services (SANBS), coupled with a growing donor base is not enough to ensure there is enough blood stock for winter.
A major reason behind the plummeting stock is that up to 40 percent of SANBS’ blood comes from school pupils and university students. With these institutions closed for a large portion of winter, blood donors can become scarce.
To entice donors to sit down and share their blood with up to three recipients, SANBS undertook the 3M blood campaign for Blood Donor Month this June.
The campaign was launched at the Fourways Blood Donor Centre.
Science-based company 3M, with SANBS are encouraging everyone to donate blood. 3M donated 70 000 specially-designed plasters in support of the month.
They also set out to woo potential donation virgins by challenging donors to take a selfie of their arm after donating blood with the special 3M plaster and share it on social media with the hashtag #GiveBloodSelfie.
Weekly hampers are up for grabs to the the heroes willing to sacrifice blood for the greater good.
Considering SANBS’s new non-discriminatory policy, there should be a larger donor base. Previously, questions asked on the form donors needed to fill out focused on anal sex between men. These questions seeking to ‘screen’ if someone was gay, have been scrapped, with SANBS and the Western Province Blood Transfusion Service changing their position on the donor acceptance criteria.
For a list of donor centres and mobile clinics, visit the SANBS website.
Details: www.sanbs.org.za
