[PHOTOS] Decades of blood donations celebrated at award ceremony
A crowd of proud blood donors came together to celebrate their contributions and receive an award from the SANBS.
Earlier in February, at Silverstar during the Egoli West Donor for Life Awards, numerous men and women were honoured for their courageous acts of kindness.
To have received an invitation to this prestigious award ceremony from the South African National Blood Service (SANBS) you’d have had to have donated blood more than 50 times in your life. Considering that you can only donate blood once in every two months, you can understand that it took many years for some of these people to reach this goal. But, there is a much quicker way to get to this goal. By donating blood plasma, you will be able to donate once every month. Donating platelets means you can donate every seven days for a maximum of 24 times a year.
Why is it so important to donate blood?
In 2015, Bradley Cabral underwent a standard hernia operation, during which he contracted septicemia, which is a serious bloodstream infection which can be fatal if left untreated. Bradley received 14 blood transfusions to flush the infection out of his system.
In 2018, Bradley contracted Guilain Barré Syndrome (GBS) which left him completely paralysed. GBS causes the body’s immune system to damage the peripheral nervous system, weakening muscles. To combat this, Bradley had to receive 14 blood plasma transfusions to replace his white blood cells with cells that could fight back against the GBS. Bradley has now almost completely recovered, except for paralysis in his wrists and ankles. Because a person is only allowed to receive a maximum of 14 transfusions in a certain period, he will have to wait for almost two years to undergo this treatment again.
Bradley was glad to speak to the award recipients and thank everyone for helping people in positions similar to that in which he found himself.
One of the awardees honoured at the event was Chris Labuschagne. He wasn’t just there for reaching the 50 donations mark – he has donated blood more than 100 times in his life. Chris first donated blood at the age of 18, but he said that for the first 25 years, his donations weren’t really recorded that well. He believes his donations number more than twice the recorded figure. But, for him it isn’t about the number, but that he still donates as regularly as he can.
Mother and daughter team, Marietjie and Ruzette Schroeder, have donated 50 and 20 times respectively, and enjoyed coming to this event together to celebrate Marietjie’s contributions.
Mark Milbert arrived at the event with his wife, Anita, to celebrate their respective impressive total of 100 and 75 donations.
And so Silverstar’s Platinum Ballroom filled with noteworthy donors, but two who clearly stood out were close friends and neighbours, Lucas Barnard and Pieter van Rensburg.
Lucas has donated blood just over 450 times in his life and has never stopped donating to a cause he really believes in.
Pieter donated for the first time right after he left the army, but then stopped for some time, but a coincidence made him donate again and as a result, Pieter received an award from the SANBS for more than 300 donations.
There are many important reasons to donate regularly. If you want to find out what blood donations are all about, and how you can contribute, be sure to visit the SANBS website.
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