More Blood Stuff

My recent foray into first time blood donation really got me thinking, so I found myself doing a little research. I wanted to make sure my blood - clearly an awesome part of myself! - was going to a ‘good home’.

I found out several cool facts about the process:

• A single whole-blood donation can save up to three lives.
• Despite one-third of people needing a blood product at some point in their lives, just 3% of people actually donate. This is why reoccuring blood donations are so important.
• Australia is one of only a handful of countries worldwide who are self-sufficient in their blood supply. This means that donors give enough blood to meet the needs of the community.
• Most people naturally assume that most blood donations go toward replenishing lost blood in accident or injury victims. In fact in Australia, 30% of blood goes toward treating cancer patients, and in particular, those battling leukaemia. 15% and 12% are used for treating heart disease patients and burns victims/other disorders respectively. Just 12% is used for accident victims.
• In Australia, 40% of the population has a blood type of O+. Following are A+ (31%), O- (9%), B+ (8%), A- (7%), AB+ and B- (at 2% each). The rarest blood type is AB- with just 1% of the population.
• While some whole-blood donation stocks are reserved to treat severe bleeding in surgery or accidents, the majority of the blood collected in a whole-blood donation is separated into three components - red blood cells (which go to treat severe anaemia, accident victims with severe bleeding and surgical patients), platelets (which go to treat cancer and leukaemia patients) and plasma (which can be turned into a variety of products). You can also undergo a platelet-only or plasma-only donation.
• Red blood cells have a shelf life of 42 days and plasma up to 12 months, but platelets only last for 5 days. This is one of the reasons it is vital to keep blood bank levels up. If you decide to donate only platelets or plasma, you can donate more often, up to every 2-3 weeks. Whole blood donations are restricted to 12 weeks between visits (both Talented Hubby and I gave whole blood donations yesterday).

I’ve actually quite surprised myself with how enthusiastic I am about all of this. I mean, I always knew it was a good thing, but it wasn’t until I took the plunge and read up on it that I realised just how vital a service this actually is.