HEAVY STOCKS OF BLOOD

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27928, 27 March 1956, Page 15

HEAVY STOCKS OF BLOOD

SUCCESSFUL APPEAL FOR DONORS CENTRE NOW SEEKS RESPITE So great has been the response to the appeal for blood donors that the secretary of the North Canterbury Blood Transfusion Service (Mr T. W. Smith) yesterday asked for a respite. Although the usual testing staff has been augmented by another doctor and three nurses, the number of donors coming forward far exceeded the number which could be handled, he said. The only donors still sought at present by the service are those in the negative groups. Stocks of negative blood are still not very high, said Mr Smith. “But for the rest of those good people. I would ask them to wait for about a fortnight before coming in. We are absolutely overloaded.” he said. Donors were pouring in at such a rate that the staff could not handle the blood tests or the blood, he said. With the mobile unit at Sockburn yesterday morning the staff was smaller than usual. When the unit returned it brought with it blood from 35 donors Mr Smith said that every time blood was taken it was tested before being used for transfusions. So heavy had been the work that the centre’s staff had not yet completed testing blood taken at Kaiapoi last week, he said.

“Now we have these 35 extra donors from Sockburn, and they have to be tested also. Goodness knows when it will all be completed,” he said. The necessity to test every donation and to blood-grouo each donor had created an insurmountable bottleneck, said Mr Smith.

Another reason why he had been forced to call a halt to donations for a while was that each new donor had to be given a complete medical overhaul by a doctor to make sure he was physically fit; samples of the donor’s blood had to be taken, grouped and tested to ensure that it did not contain any disease. This blood had to go through 12 hands, he said.

“The response has been simply marvellous. Even today they are lined up outside. I cannot give you all the donors we have bled or tested because we have been so busy, but so far this morning I have had 42 telephone calls from donors and I think 25 have so far been tested this morning. ‘‘l can never express my gratitude to all the good people who have offered and given blood, but please ask them to hold off for a couple of weeks.” said Mr Smith. “My gratitude also goes to the newspapers, without whose help I do not know where we would have been.”