Blood- they want it!

SIL used to donate regularly but had to stop when he developed serious heart problems and was put on Warfarin. Perhaps things like this are happening to more people.

'Returned' to donating five years ago when I retired (DD2works in NHS and,says they are desperate for donors )
But as maggiesays they don't make it easy .Very few walk- ins and hard to get an appointment at short notice .Said DD has stopped donating as she works shifts and cannot predict too far ahead when she can attend

I donated for many years..got badges and everything ... but they only used my blood for 'blood products' as I had lived in Africa as a child . Now I have CLL they can't use it at all.

I went once, queued up for ages and then got told, due to my heart conditions, that I couldn't give any blood. My ED does and has done for some time now and my DS is keen to give too. I'm Rh negative, no idea what the children are.

It's strange that they wouldn't let you donate Lona it does say new donors have to be under 66. Maybe they haven't updated their site. It also states that returning donors are welcome up to 70. Maybe you should give them a call.
Granjura they won't take my daughters blood in Australia because ofCJD.
They do seem to have made the screening process a little less tedious. At one time, because we lived in Nigeria before I was 5 they had to check for malaria, every single time, now they seem to have managed to circumvent that.
I also see new donors being turned away, the other month one mother had obviously spent time persuading her two children to save a life, not sure if they would go back.
They could have had my slot but the bag ect. would have been labelled by then.
My Younger DD shudders and says I don't do needles! Irritates the** out of me. Would she feel the same if she needed a transfusion!

It's quite amusing that the Swiss and Australians won't take blood from Brits, and I have been turned away here after holidays to both countries because of a BSE outbreak in Switzerland a few years after ours, and the Ross River Virus in Australia. The thinking behind it must be that we can cope with our own medical problems, but not those of other countries

Well the French gvt were sued for massive amounts because they didn't screen properly for heamophylia and infected 100s- so I imagine it's best to be very careful with blood products.

That's terrible, I didn't even know that haemophylia could be passed on by blood transfusion.

Are you sure it wasn't that hemophiliacs (who get a lot of transfusions) were infected with HIV which had not been screened for? Hemophilia is passed on genetically, A person with hemophilia cannot produce a protein that is vital to making blood clots. It is not "caught"

Of course, Elegran, that'll be it. I remember it happening now.

Yes, sorry, that's it. But it does illustrate how proper screening is essential.

I guess, like most things, the system is fallible. Still I will be on a mission now to encourage our younger generations to go and give.
I may need a bit of blood at some point and will be very cross if there isn't any!
Even if I can only persuade 2 that will be enough to replace us when we have to stop.

Screening definitely got pickier (for safer blood) over the years while I was a regular blood and platelet donor. One would expect that, really, as knowledge increased. Eventually I was told that I was too small to be donating anyhow. This was after I felt whoozy during the fifth platelet spin on one occasion. After that they only did four for a few months but then they stopped asking me to come.

DD2 remembers coming along to the donation centre with me before she was old enough for school. She is now a blood donor herself.

Oh indeed and good on you- it is essential. I needed litres and litres after my terrible car crash in 1970- and if my grandchildren ever needed some and there was none- I'd be more than cross. So keep up the good work.