TeenPerspectives.com

August 2007

Blood Donations Save Lives

by Somayya Gefori

I am now a regular blood donor, after recently donating blood for the second time.

In the UK, there is a blood donation service called NBS (National Blood Service), which is part of the NHS blood and organ transplants, (National Health Service). NBS collect donated blood all over the country, by organising donation sessions, usually in community centres. These are voluntary and donors are not paid. That’s what makes it a charity, it is clearly done out of the goodness of people’s hearts. Blood donors are urged to donate up to three times a year, with at least a 16-week gap in between each donation so that the blood and cells can regenerate.

Blood donations save lives. If a woman was giving birth and she had complications, like haemorrhaging, she could die without a blood transfusion. In Islam, saving a life is one of the best things a person can do.

Allah, the Almighty says: “…and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind.” (Surat Al-Ma’dah: 32).

More ethnic minority people are needed to give blood, because people of an ethnic minority tend to have the rare blood types that are not common among white people. I myself have a rare blood type, AB Rhesus Positive. Only two in every hundred people have it.

The most common blood type is O. It’s very important to hospitals to have the rare blood types on hand, because a person with a rare blood type could lose blood in an accident, operation, etc and if there was no rare type blood to give that person, he could die, especially if he had lost a vast amount of blood.

Giving blood is charity, just like giving money to the poor. Both acts save lives. Blood donation is halal, because it harms neither the donor nor the recipient. One donation can go a long way, because the blood is divided into components: the red cells can be used for anaemia, kidney dialysis, during surgery etc; the plasma can be used for burn and shock victims. There are also platelets, which can be used for cancer and surgery. There are many more uses for the blood people donate, more than I have listed.

Everything is clean and sterile when you donate blood. Disposable, sterile needles are used for each donation. The area where the needle is to be used is cleaned with a sterile wet wipe.

Before you donate, a simple finger prick is done to check whether you are anaemic. A small drop of blood is collected in a pipette and put in a special solution of coloured water. If the blood drop sinks within 15 seconds, you are not anaemic. If the blood takes a long time to sink, or it floats, then it means you are anaemic, which is low iron in the blood. You are also asked simple health questions, and in addition they will test your blood to check for HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis. You are not allowed to donate if you have recently been to an area where malaria occurs.

So why not do what I have done and donate your blood? You usually don’t feel anything afterwards (at the most a small degree of light headedness that will pass quickly), except the nice warm feeling inside that comes from doing a good deed! You can donate blood all over the world, wherever you live, usually between the ages of 17 and 60 and at a healthy weight.

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