BLOOD TRANSFUSION

Chronicle (Levin), 11 October 1947, Page 2

BLOOD TRANSFUSION

MEETING TO BE HELD AT OTAKI . A meeting of persons interested a blood transfusion will be held at Jtaki in the course of a day or so, when it is expected a large number of persons will be present. In recent years blood transfusion has come to be recognised as a surgieal practice of great importnce. It has been discovered that i certain cases of haemorrhage ■ md serious anaemia, the simple operation of blood transfusion is iften effective in saving life, and further, a patient too weak to stand x necessary operation may be sufficiently strengthened by infusion of new blood to undergo it with perfect safety. The service represents an attempt to organise a permanent number of voluntary blood donors' from which every case of real urgency can be met. The following are the conditions nder which the National Blood Transfusion Service supplies its donors: (1) -That the service shall be -known as the National Blood Transfusion Service; (2) that the tocal branch will prepare the lists and maintain a day and night telephone service, and immediateiy upon receipt of an application will notify the donor to proceed, if necessary, to the hospital; (3) that 10 application be made unless there are ho suitable relatives of the

ght group; (4) that t|ie operation is to be carried out by a skilled surgeon; (5) that the expenses will be borne by the service; C6) that the needle method of extraction is ' alone to be used. Opening the vein, cutting down on it, or levering it up, is forbidden, and donors are instructed- to refuse to serve unless :his condition is observed; (7) that ro monetary present be made to donors. As the Palmerston North Hospital rnns a. "blood bank," in which blood can be stored against an emergency, the local donors are not called at night, and only very rarely on the weekends. This enables the donors to give their blood at a time suitable to themselves, and ensures that the blood is taken by a specialist in this type °f work.