Donate Blood - Become a Hero

Happy New Year!!! Was one of your New Year’s Resolutions to save a life? How about the opportunity to save 3 lives by donating just one unit of blood? Nurses Announcements Archive Article

Since 1970, National Blood Donor Month has been observed in January to not only honor blood and platelet donors, but also to help increase donations during the winter months.

Blood is traditionally in short supply during the winter months due to the holidays, travel schedules, inclement weather and illness. January, in particular, is a difficult month for blood centers to collect blood donations. A reduction in turnout can put our nation's blood inventory at a critical low. As nurses, we see the life-saving effects of blood or blood products for critically ill patients.

As one blood donor said,

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It only takes once sitting in a hospital, praying that your loved one will live through the day, to know how thankful you are for every single thing done to help them," she said. "Donating blood is a simple gift that I can make that may help up to three people live another day. That makes me feel like a hero.

Stop and take one to two hours out of your life to donate blood. Be a hero and give the gift of life today.

It's a great thing to be able to donate blood. I wish they'd update their arcane policies, however. If people in England lived by their rules, there would not be any blood for anyone over there to get any. And their stigmatism against gay men who are sexually active is abhorrent.

I have sexually active gay male students that donate. And coworkers.

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Specializes in Hospice and Palliative Care.

They don't want my perfectly good O+ blood because *gasp* I lived in England for several years and might have undetected *double gasp* mad cow disease (a.k.a. Creutzfeldt-Jakob). I've never been able to donate a single drop of blood my whole life, and unless some policies are updated, will never be able to. Sadness!

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Specializes in Psychiatric nursing.

I donate platelets through the Red Cross when I have the time. My platelet count is high enough that I can usually donate a triple unit in one sitting.

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Specializes in Surgical, quality,management.
Unfortunately I grew up in Europe during the "mad cow years" and I cannot donate in the United States. While deployed to Afghanistan I was not excluded from the whole blood donor pool, interestingly enough!

I salute those of you who can and do donate! Your gifts are appreciated!

I was ìn England at that time, couldn't donate in Ireland, cant donate in Australia. I donate to my hospital blood research registry. They take about 100 mls for various research projects., they call you depending on what they need blood for. A lot of gay nurses donate there as well.

It's crazy that when the hospital I worked in ireland which was close to the boarder ran out of blood they contacted the nearest hospital which was in northern ireland..........

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Specializes in ICU.

The rules about CJD seem dumb... until a patient in your hospital contracts it off the equipment. We had that happen a few years ago at my hospital. It's bad stuff and big lawsuit money.

Though, technically, blood really should be OK since it's just blood and not spinal fluid. We don't even put people on contact for it when they come up to visit us, unless they've had a LP or something.

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Specializes in ED, Pedi Vasc access, Paramedic serving 6 towns.
I donate platelets through the Red Cross when I have the time. My platelet count is high enough that I can usually donate a triple unit in one sitting.

An then you bleed out when you trip and fall on the way out!

Annie

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I'm a regular donor,twice a year to be exact. I'd love to give more but my body doesn't like it very much.

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Specializes in Dialysis.
Unfortunately I grew up in Europe during the "mad cow years" and I cannot donate in the United States. While deployed to Afghanistan I was not excluded from the whole blood donor pool, interestingly enough!

I salute those of you who can and do donate! Your gifts are appreciated!

I served in the Army in Germany during those years. They won't take my blood either

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I've donated before and haven't in a long time. My SO is O- and refuses to donate thanks to years growing up at a Jehovah Witness. He's since left the religion, but it irks me that he doesn't realize how precious his blood is being a universal donor.

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Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
Especially the little ones. The big pricks are harder to handle.

With plasma they use a fairly large bore needle.

Fine with sticking other people, seriously though when it comes to me, not so much.

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Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.

I can't donate again until they change the sensitivities in the initial screening test. I test falsely positive for Shigella and Hepatitis (not sure which kind???). Further tests come back positive. I am part of a research study as to why I test pos. Interestingly, my diabetic son was tested for Hepatitis after a caregiver had a finger stick post insulin admin (didn't follow protocol and tried to recap needle) and HE tested pos for Hep. We chalked it up to post vax titers. Now I am not so sure.

Wish I coudl give blood. I donate my time.

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Oh. Right. Needles.

I donate every 3 months or so and have off and on since high school. Locally, a blood center comes up here from "the big city".

Needles are a minor pain issue when compared to the labor pains of having a baby so . . . no biggie for me at all.

Making sure you are well hydrated beforehand and eating a snack and drinking some juice right afterwards helps keep the "dizzy" feeling away.

I never feel bad afterwards; maybe I'm just used to it after all these years because I do remember feeling dizzy the first time. Now, I can jog afterwards.

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