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Blood Shortage, You Can Donate Now As many fellow-activists know, I have been promoting the idea of giving blood once every two months, which I have been doing for more than two years. Southern California has a permanent 25 percent shortfall in donations, partially because a higher percentage of major surgeries are performed here. Blood must be imported from surrounding regions. But now the Red Cross faces the biggest shortage in the Southland in six years. It is probable that elective surgeries are going to be postponed. The supply is grossly inadequate in case of a disaster like an earthquake. The Red Cross makes it easy now and nonintrusive to become a regular donor (once every 56 days is the maximum). It is done entirely with Internet reminders, no flood of phone calls as donors once received. With the Red Cross collection bank in Laguna Hills and regular collections and hospitals and the Bloodmobile, it is easy to find a convenient time to give blood regardless of your schedule. The whole collection takes about 30 minutes per person, and the donor can now answer personal health questions on a computer rather than having a worker ask the questions. You need to have a healthy lifestyle to qualify, and there are some questions if you have lived abroad. There is no one single thing you can do in 30 minutes that could give more help to a person in need than to give blood. Right now, go to socalredcross.org for more information. You can sign up in a couple of minutes and then return to reading the rest of the blog. Allan Pilger |
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