BLOOD DONORS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 219, 16 August 1937, Page 2

BLOOD DONORS

A LIFE-SAVING SERVICE. Donations of blood for transfusion to-day form a life-saving service in many cases, ami in serious accidents, severe injuries, and haemorrhage as an attendant circumstance, blood transfusion is often essential. To provide for an efficient organisation to assist in this object, and aid those desperately injured, there is to be formed in Palmerston North a branch of th* National Blood Transfusion Service. To that end a public meeting is being called by the Mayor (Air A. E. Alansford) for Thursday evening, to be hold ill tlie City Council Chambers commencing at 7.30 o’clock. The national service is modelled on the excellent voluntary blood transfusion service which has been in existence in Wellington for the past few years, and a movement has been started to establish branches of the service in all the larger centres in New- Zealand. One branch has recently been set up in Napier. A.n indication of tlie scope of the original service may be obtained from the fact that in Wellington the service has some 350 voluntary donors on its hooks. The donors offer their services freely. If there is need for an urgent blood transfusion a message is sent to the secretary who, by means of his records, obtains a suitable donor within a few minutes. Such donors are only called on in eases ,of emergency, or where no suitable relative is available. All persons belong to one of four .different"types in regard to blood, and it is advisable to give blood transfusions to a patient only from a donor having the same type of blood as the patient. The voluntary blood donors are all tested and classified in their respective types when they enrol in the service, and it is necessary to have » large membership, as two of the types are relatively rare. only five to ten per cent, of people belonging to one of these. Tn general, adults are desired in the blood transfusion sdrvicc, both men and women. Air C. Meachen, of Wellington, is tlie honorary organising secretory of the National Blood Transfusion Service which, it is proposed, shall be correlated with the St. John Ambulance Service, Mr Meachen being also secretary iri Wellington for the; St. John Ambulance Brigade. He will he present at the meeting on Thursday night, and Dr P. Lynch, of Wellington, who is president of the national organisation, will address the mooting. The donating of blood is to-day an important humanitarian service and there should he no difficulty in Palmerston North in interesting a large number of citizens in this most worthy project.