CityBeat - Te Waha Nui Online

Your good deed for today

your-good-deed-for-today

by Grace Honney

Eighty per cent of New Zealanders will need blood or blood products in their lifetime, but only four per cent donate.

Even I can see that those figures just do not add up. So which one are you?

As of yesterday I am a blood donor. I haven’t (thankfully) needed to receive blood yet, but my dad has and I’m sure that you know someone who knows someone who has needed blood too.

Did you know that your single blood donation will save up to three lives? So, apart from doing your really good deed for the day, you also get as many free biscuits as you want!

I don’t have a huge fear of needles or become squeamish at the sight of blood, but I didn’t want to faint or do something else otherwise embarrassing.

Happily, I can tell you that apart from my arm being a little bit sore today, I suffered no adverse effects.

It does take a little bit of time to fill in the forms and chat with the nurse, but once you’re all set up it takes about five minutes to give your pint of blood.

To all of you thinking up excuses as to why you cannot donate blood, my advice to you is to just do it. Click here to clarify any myths you may have heard about why you can’t donate.

You are only allowed to give blood up to four times a year so that’s 20 minutes of your life per year in return for saving the lives of 12 others.

What do you actually have to lose? According to the Red Defender (a superhero created in the U.S. to encourage blood donation), “saving the world isn’t easy, but saving a life is.”

For more information about where you can donate blood, look out for the mobile blood clinics or go to the New Zealand Blood Service website.

I’d just like to remind those who were not swayed by the thought of saving lives that you get biscuits. And a free pen.

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