werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (01/04/86)
}
President Reagan has declared January as National Volunteer Blood
Donor Month, calling blood donors, "quiet heroes and heroines whose
generosity preserves health and saves lives."
In a formal declaration, the President notes that despite all the
advances in technology and the "awesome progress" made in understanding
human pathology, no adequate substitute has been found for human blood.
Please note that there is absolutely NO chance of your getting AIDS by
GIVING blood. This misconception has caused the current shortage.
Contact you local Red Cross or local hospital for donor information.
--
Craig Werner
!philabs!aecom!werner
"It's hard to argue with someone who knows what he's talking about."jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) (01/06/86)
In article <2164@aecom.UUCP> werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) writes: > President Reagan has declared January as National Volunteer Blood >Donor Month, ... > Please note that there is absolutely NO chance of your getting AIDS by >GIVING blood. This misconception has caused the current shortage. > Contact you local Red Cross or local hospital for donor information. Note also that, if you know you do not have AIDS or any other infectious disease, you help increase the healthy blood supply by donating! (And the nurses will help you determine what might be disqualifying.) For recent, good information on AIDS and other diseases that are tested for in blood donors, contact your local Red Cross chapter's Blood Services, Health Services, or Nursing & Health Services, or your local hospital. Then, ask for a bloodmobile schedule! -- Joe Yao hadron!jsdy@seismo.{CSS.GOV,ARPA,UUCP}
wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (01/06/86)
I give blood. As a matter of fact, I've given over 3 gallons during the past decade or so. If everyone did as I have done, the Red Cross would be awash in blood and there would be no need to solicit donations. However, sometimes my desire to continue diminishes. Two reasons: 1) Some of the technicians (or whatever they are) that do the actual collecting are great. Others are losers. When the one I get is good, there is just about no pain, the blood flows easily and rapidly, and there is no leakage or bruising afterwards. When I get a bad one, like my last time (early December), they lose the vein, spend some time churning the needle in and out trying to find it, and then get sluggish output. (This last one shut me down after a half-bag had been collected; that's the first time they did that! Why would they do that if they need blood so badly?) And then I have a vast bruise on my arm for weeks after. The last time ths happened, I was so disgusted I stopped donating for three years. They ought to screen these people better, and only allow the really good ones to actually stick people. The others can do the standing around to watch the bags fill. All you'd need is one good sticker for each collection drive, except for really big efforts. 2) I would think that multiple donors, especially multi-gallon types, would be eagerly sought-after by the Red Cross. Yet, they seem to do little to encourage this or give recognition to them. They have even cut out the donor-record cards that had specific pint numbers printed on them, so you had rarer and rarer record cards as you donated more and more. I would think that they would go to the effort of doing the sort of silly hoopla when a donor passes a gallon mark that the volunteers at the public TV station auctions do when there is an overbid -- wave some flags and blow some horns or something. Yes, its meaningless and somewhat embarassing, but it shows that they care! They don't care, it seems, and I'm beginning to lose interest in continuing to donate. (I HAVE told my local Red Cross office this, by the way. Things have gotten worse since then, not better.) Will
ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (01/07/86)
I am in a similar situation as Will Martin, having passed my second gallon mark some time ago. Acutally, our cards are still marked with the pint numbers and I got a nice letter and real gold plated metal pin for my second gallon. As far as encouragement. When I was giving regularly (nearly every 56 days) they would call me up and remind me each time. Now, they call me only when they really need me (mostly becuase I usually can come in the same day). For this response, they push me ahead of any one else waiting. Probably due to my popular blood type. At least the Chesapeake Region ARC seems to be doing better than St.Louis. =Ron
grl@drutx.UUCP (LymanGR) (01/10/86)
One scheme which would encourage more blood donations would be to
pay the donator a percentage of the value of the unit of blood.
I understand that blood is expensive (~ $25 a unit?).
Of course, there would be the problem of people donating too
often if this became overly attractive... [e. g. poor college
students, winos, etc. :-) ]
Randy Lyman