Posted by Carol Benson
Our speaker on Tuesday, Elle Giles, gave us an update on the Red Cross Blood Bank which is now known as the Red Cross Blood Service.  The name was changed a couple of years ago to better reflect the range of services now provided Australia wide. As well as blood donations the service also includes the Organ and Tissue Registry, Bone Marrow registry, breast milk for premature babies, research and innovation.
 
The Service needs 33,000 blood donations per week comprising 19,000 plasma donations, 500 platelet donations and 13,500 blood donations.
Donors - Rod Smith, David Fallick,  
Cheryl Pisterman & Charles Tran & speaker 
Elle Giles in the centre
34% of donations are used for cancer / blood disorder treatments; 19% for anemia, 18% for heart surgery and severe burns, with the balance used for blood transfusions for many other disorders. Sometimes a donor is advised by text where their blood has been used i.e., at RMH. Another advantage of being a blood donor is that you can have a free health check.
 
An eligible person is able to make a full blood donation every 3 months and a plasma donation every 2 weeks.
 
Elle’s role is to educate people about the uses of blood products, and how important the blood donations are from us. An example of this is that at last week's Farmers Market the Red Cross attended as part of the Emergency Management display and they were able sign up 36 new donors.
 
Our club at present only has 3 active donors.  All members present were encouraged to become donors.  The website is very informative and easy to use.  There is a team - Rotary Australia Glenferrie 9800 – which Club members can also sign up to. There are donor centres located around Melbourne, both main centres and ‘pop ups’ which make it convenient to be a donor.  Ie. the closest donor centre for me is the pop up at Camberwell Bowls Club in Bowen Street Camberwell.