Blood Doners

I've given blood once and intend to go again to the next one. I took my mp3 player last time to sit and listen to while it was sucking my blood :P

But yes, it is a worthwhile thing to do and gives me a sense of purpose in life :D
 
I heard while the NHS depends on charitable people to give blood, they sell the blood to private hospitals and make money. This has put me off giving blood not knowing that it does infact stay in the NHS.
 
Tom0 said:
I heard while the NHS depends on charitable people to give blood, they sell the blood to private hospitals and make money. This has put me off giving blood not knowing that it does infact stay in the NHS.
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Who cares? End result is the same - someone gets helped. Infact, two people probably get helped in the case of a sale:

1) More money for the NHS
2) Transfusion for the private patient
 
Tom0 said:
I heard while the NHS depends on charitable people to give blood, they sell the blood to private hospitals and make money. This has put me off giving blood not knowing that it does infact stay in the NHS.
Click to expand...

Oh really?

Does having a low blood pressure impact on donating blood?
 
Tom0 said:
I heard while the NHS depends on charitable people to give blood, they sell the blood to private hospitals and make money. This has put me off giving blood not knowing that it does infact stay in the NHS.
Click to expand...
the nhs can not be run on NI contribtions alone
whilst the 'selling' of blood may seem awful - think of it that private patients are given 'nhs' blood - but pay for it via their insurance company!
so your blood is doing twice as much good - saving a life, and helping fund the nhs :)

(i do not work in this area, but from what i have read and understand about private practice, this is the way that nhs / private overlap works)
 
Tom0 said:
I heard while the NHS depends on charitable people to give blood, they sell the blood to private hospitals and make money. This has put me off giving blood not knowing that it does infact stay in the NHS.
Click to expand...

Its a seperate service that deals with the Blood side, The NBS, though they come under NHS control.
I should know more about this, since our major client at work is the NBS. we write their core Donor Managment/testing system (Pulse) and maintain a rather life critical database on the back of this, and no, it aint Oracle or SQL at the back end ;)

And yes i do give when i can, being O- helps.
Only had it hurt once, but that was many many moons ago.
 
Donate platelets, you can do so every four weeks and you'll really feel like you're doing some good. Platelet donars ensure that whole blood is not wasted just to provide white blood cells and their donations are mostly used for new mothers, premature babies and burn victims.
 
I go every 4 months with our eldest son and we race each other on timing. He has got it down to 9 minutes but I'm languishing on 11. I have never really thought about the actual recipient until this week when I had given blood on Thursday and on Friday met someone who's dad had had a transfusion the previous day.

For an insight, look on the 'blood' website and see how low the stocks are.

The best way to have any injection / needle inserted - take a deep breath in and as you feel the needle go in, breath out slowly and concentrate on your breath. You will still feel it, but you won't flinch as you won't tense up.

Go and give blood - yermum has spoken.
 
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