Urgent call to give blood as flu season depletes stocks
Farid Farid |
Runny noses and sore throats are keeping blood donors away, but one man who nearly died is singlehandedly upping dwindling supplies.
Donated blood is needed for a range of patients including cancer sufferers, new mothers, people undergoing surgery and children.
For Krishan Lal, who was involved in a freak motorbike accident on a remote NSW road, he would not be alive without critical donors.
The 42-year-old design engineer had been a regular donor as a youngster with dozens of donations to his name, before being flung in the air off his bike and crashing into the windscreen of a truck.
But after undergoing surgery in 2017 by an orthopaedic surgeon who was luckily passing by his accident scene, he is more determined than ever to set an example for others.
“I lost almost 1.7 litres of blood, my pulse was almost gone, I was already white and cold… I only had five minutes left of life,” he told AAP.
“I never thought that I would be a recipient of blood, and then that’s one of the things that’s ended up saving me – so that was a full-circle moment.”
Australian Red Cross Lifeblood says 12,000 donations are immediately needed to support patients in life-threatening situations.
Those who have been lucky to stave off flu symptoms are urged to head to centres in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, where shortages are dire with the greatest need for O-negative and O-positive blood.
Up to 1600 donation appointments sit empty every day, with many more people cancelling or rescheduling appointments, Lifeblood chief customer officer Cath Stone said.
“Even mild symptoms such as sniffles, sore throats, and headaches make people temporarily ineligible to give blood, and this can severely impact the availability of donors during winter months,” she said.
“We’re urging anyone who is fit and well to book an appointment now, and anyone recovering from illness to donate as soon as they can.”
About 8000 units of blood, plasma and platelets are issued as urgent or life-threatening orders every month, meaning they must be dispatched within 30 minutes to support patients in critical situations.
Only three per cent of Australians donate blood regularly, but Mr Lal wants to desperately increase the figure.
“It’s the gift that no one else can give. You can’t put a price tag on it,” he said.
“Every donation you do saves three lives… and I can’t thank whomever it was that that did it for me.”
AAP