Blood Bank stalwarts honoured

IT WAS DESCRIBED as a very small reward to say thank you. It was a lunch hosted by the South African National Blood Service (SANBS), also known as the Blood Bank, and the guests were the Blood Bank’s long-serving donors who had reached certain milestones in their blood donating careers.

Donors such as Stephanus Louwies who received a medal for donating 175 units of blood in a blood donating career of over 30 years.

Charles Maharaj of the KZN Marketing division of SANBS, said he described donor as “life savers”, and that those present at the lunch at Rita’s Guest House on Saturday, had saved thousands of lives.

He said that it was not only people who were involved in accidents whose lives were saved, but women giving birth, leukaemia patients and surgical cases. He said that currently people were waiting for days for their surgeries because they were waiting for the availability of the correct blood type – blood stocks in KZN were down to just 2.2 days worth of blood at present.

Shavani Sewpaul, SANBS northern KZN marketing, said that she was inspired by the people who she’d seen at the blood clinics, and both she and the SANBS’s Christo Maakal referred to the huge contribution that Vryheid’s schools made to the amount of blood collected, with Vryheid High School and Pionier High School always featuring in the list of the top 10 schools in KZN.

On Saturday the blood donating stalwarts were presented with medals and certificates, and enjoyed a very tasty lunch. A small reward for saving lives