Strathmore High hosts blood clinic

Shannon LeClair
Times Reporter

 

Giving blood is one of the easiest things you can donate. It’s free, it’s something you have plenty of, it can literally save a life, and you can get a cookie in the end. And who doesn’t love cookies?
On April 6 from 4-8 p.m. Strathmore High School’s (SHS) Student Leadership Council (SLC) wants you to come and give blood.
“We joined up with the Young Blood for Life campaign to broaden our school’s fundraising efforts. We wanted to make more of an impact besides just selling baked goods for SLC or wearing crazy socks,” said Chelsea Dyck, with the SLC.
“We wanted to actually make an impact in people’s lives. We signed up through the Canadian Blood Services Calgary branch. It was really easy to set it all up.
The Young Blood for Life is a national donor recruitment program that runs from the beginning of September until the end of May, and is designed to raise awareness in all students and to encourage people to get their fellow students, family, friends and teachers to donate blood.
“At the moment the clinic is about 40 per cent booked, but we have a lot of openings … we have about 70 open appointment spots to fill for that clinic. It’s tough to ask people to come out on an Easter Monday but, it’s also an amazingly great cause and reason to do it,” said Susan Matsumoto, director of donor relations for Canadian Blood Services’ Alberta, Saskatchewan and Northwest Territories region.
“It only takes about an hour of time when you come to the clinic to when you’re ready to leave.”
The most needed blood type is O negative, which is the universal blood group for whole blood.
“The reason it is so important is, if someone is in a car accident for example, and you don’t know that person’s blood type, the type of blood that you can give to anyone is O negative blood,” said Matsumoto.
Generally during a transfusion in the hospital the nurses would know the patient’s blood type and give them the same type; but in an emergency and the patient needs blood immediately, you can give them O negative. A person in an accident could require up to 50 units of blood, which could take 50 different people to get. Each time a person donates they give 500ml.
When that unit of blood is processed it can be made into three different products: red cells, plasma or platelets. Red blood cells have the iron component, plasma is often used for burn victims and platelets are the clotting factor of blood.
Some people require routine blood; someone with leukemia could need up to eight donations a week as part of their therapy, said Matsumoto. Someone going through cancer treatment could need five donations. Heart surgery could take five donations, people going through bone marrow could need up to two donators a day for a period of time, and people going through hip replacement could take two donations as well.
“The need for blood is constant. Canadian Blood Services is the only organization in Canada, outside of Quebec, that provides all of our hospitals with the blood products that they need,” said Matsumoto. Everyone is required to complete a questionnaire to determine if they are eligible to donate blood. A copy of that can be found on the website, or if you have questions call 1-888-to-donate and a nurse will be able to help.
There are three easy ways to book an appointment, either by going online at blood.ca, calling the national centre at 1-888-2-donate or via a mobile app available for iPhones and Android devices.
Individuals can also indicate that they’re donating on behalf of Strathmore High School’s participation of Young Blood for Life program by going to www.blood.ca/joinpartnersforlife. Look up the high school under the ID number STRA13361.