Happy World Blood Donor Day!
Today is World Blood Donor Day, an annual World Health Organization event which serves to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood.
In the UK NHS Blood and Transplant are marking the occasion with their ‘Do you know yours?’ campaign where they encourage people to join the conversation by sharing their blood type on social media or simply talking to a friend about blood donation.
The important message behind all this is that NHS Blood and Transplant need more donors and whilst not everybody can become a donor, for a variety of reasons, there are plenty of people who currently do not donate who could. They are particularly wanting donors from non-white backgrounds especially Black African and Black Caribbean to enable better matched blood types for all patients in the future and to reduce health inequalities. My recent blog on Sickle Cell anaemia is a good example of a condition that predominantly affects black people who frequently need blood transfusions of the correct type.
So, if you do nothing else today, I would encourage you to look at NHS Blood and Transplant’s website and answer the question ‘do you know yours’? You may find out something interesting about your blood type and start on a lifetime of helping others through the simple gift of blood.
Emma Wray is a partner in our medical negligence team. As a former coronary nurse, Emma has extensive medical knowledge, which she brings to her medical negligence practice. If you would like to speak to Emma or one of our medical negligence experts please call 0808 271 9413 or request a call back online.