BLOOD TRANSFUSION

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 249, 18 July 1942, Page 4

BLOOD TRANSFUSION

Great Expansion Of Work In Wellington The past year had been a conspicuous one for the Wellington brunch of the National Blood Transfusion Service, said Dr. 11. K. Pacey, chairman of the committee, at the annual meeting of the service on Thursday night. There had been an amazing increase in membership from 391 to 1148, and an astonishing increase in blood donations by 429 to 942. Dr. Pacey said tlie members enrolled during the year were mostly women, because so many men were absent in the armed forces. Strenuous efforts had been made to increase the membership. Whole first aid classes had been brought in. The number of calls for blood shown in the statistics of the service did not indicate the number of blood transfusions in tlie district, efforts always being made to obtain blood from a friend or relative of the patient before a call was sent to a member of the service. The growth of tlie Wellington Hospital was a factor in tlie increase in transfusions, but he felt the principal factor was the increasing use of blood and its derivatives in medical treatment, with gratifying results. Remarking that much of the blood given by members of the service went into the blood bank, Dr. Pacey said that this was simply u store of ordinary blood taken in the usual way and stored in a refrigerator, where it could be kept a few weeks. The advantages were that it made blood available for emergencies in which the patient would die for want of blood if he or she bad to wait for a donor to. be summoned and that the donors could give blood at times that were convenient to themselves. . It would enable blood to be taken from donors living at a distance from a hospital. He thanked Mr. C. Meaclien for his work in founding and acting as honorary secretary of the society. Most of the work of the last year had been in building up the society against an emergency such as an enemy attack on New Zealand. The primary treatment of many air raid and bombardment casualties was for shock and blood loss, in both of which blood was used. For that purpose hospitals had to have adequate supplies of blood.

Mr. F. Castle, the president, said that, ihe blood transfusion department at the Wellington hospital worked quietly and few patients realized it was there. It was a department that was on the frontier of knowledge and he hoped it would be developed further. Dr. J. Cairney, medical superintendent of the Wellington Public Hospital, said he had nothing but admiration'for the assistance the hospital received when the bomb accident nt Trentham caused a large demand for blood. Should hostilities reach New Zealand there would undoubtedly be a great call on the service. Thanking the service for its work for the community, the Minister of Health, Mr. Nordnnwer, said that throughout the Dominion tliere existed facilities for the taking of blood and there must be many more people whose services as donors could be used. Officers were elected as follows;— President, Mr. D. A. Ewen; chairman of committee, Dr. S. D. Rhind; committee, Dr. R. O’Regan, Dr. C. G, Kemp, Major .T. K. Elliott. Lieutenant-Colonel E. L. Button, Dr. J. O. Mercer, Major K. Bridge, Dr. R. B, Martin, and Dr. S. G. Aitken; bon. medical adviser. Dr. P. P. Lynch; lion, auditor, Mr. H. Miller.