NHSBT‘s Winter Appeal launched this month in a bid to increase the number of donations received in December – but are people well-informed enough about what actually happens when you give blood?
BUzz news spoke to regular donor Mark Ashby, 48, in a bid to encourage people to donate this Christmas.
Asbhy, who has donated over 50 times across a 25 year period, stressed that more needs to be done to inform people about the importance of giving blood.
“The reason why I started giving was because my parents were donating. They were role models to me.” he said.
He continued to highlight that people don’t know enough about giving blood – “it’s just making people more and more aware… the more I can personally tell people that I’ve gone and given blood, they go “oh, why’d you do that?”…I do it because it helps people!
“Until you actually hear of stories or have personal tragedies… just for the sake of 20 minutes… you don’t know who you’re going to help.”
“As you become older you become more self-aware and have more humanity… you want to help out.”
“I’d like to think I have an influence on [my children] to go “okay then” – they’ve seen me do it, I explain why I do it, and it’s being a role model in a way, hopefully they’ll take it on and realise they actually it’s not that bad and it’s helping somebody.”
Signing up to give blood is simple, and help on how to register can be found here.
If you would like to donate over the Christmas period, call 0300 123 23 23, book online via www.blood.co.uk or visit the donor centre at The Dolphin Centre, 190-196 High St, Poole, BH15 1SX.
See more on this story here:
The Winter Appeal: How your blood donation can save a life this Christmas
The Winter Appeal: NHSBT’s top 10 reasons to give blood this winter
The Winter Appeal: NHSBT’s top 10 reasons to give blood this winter