Any blood donosrs here (incl ex-blood donors)

[Andrew]

I found my Blood Transfusion 'wallet' yesterday, it having fallen down the back of a drawer at some point.

I started in 1984 but gave up round about the millenium when the daily commute became too arduous to allow much spare time in the evenings.

Inside it is a plastic gold card like a credit card with my name embossed, in addition to all the applied stickers at every donation, but I can't remember how I came by this bit of plastic.

Also curious to know the colour of the name label inside the front cover, which would have been typed or printed back in 1984 and manually stuck on. Is the colour significant ?

Andrew

[Nick Odell]

I'm a retired[1] blood donor. I've just rummaged through my records. I started in 1980 with a blue book but when I reached 25 donations they gave me a silver book instead. It looks as if my 25th donation was around about the time they switched from the books to the credit-card style plastic because I only have the one entry in that book for January 1996. I carried on using the silver card until they replaced it with a gold card on my 50th donation.

Does that help?

Nick [1]I kept on going to places where they wouldn't take my blood for six months after I came back, but then I went back to those places again, rinse and repeat Now I'm considered too old to start again.

[Martin Brown]

I had the opposite problem I was living in places that wouldn't take my blood donations because I had lived in the UK during the mad cow era.

I did donate in the UK when I was running a venue that they used. They were a very impressive logistic operation turning a village hall into a hospital ward in about 40 minutes and ripping it down even faster.

I stopped giving blood when they made it too difficult. Initially I could walk over the road to do it. Then I had to drive 4 miles. Now I would have to make a round trip of 24 miles and pay for parking. (and they wonder why they are short of donors)

[charles]

I gave blood from the 1960s until the late 90s when I went on holiday to somewhere they din't like. Then, on going back, they wanted to know my ethnic origin. So, I stopped giving.

[Jeff Layman]

I'm somewhat similar. After my 47th donation I was told I couldn't donate any more as in 91 and 92 I'd been to southern South America and stayed in rural areas. Evidently they were concerned I could be a carrier of certain diseases (such as Chagas), which they couldn't test for. So that was that. Somewhere I've got a bronze badge, but no silver (I wasn't sent one), and of course I was three pints short of a gold badge. :-(

[Clive Arthur]

My booklet has a yellow name label inside the front cover, stuck on top of another yellow label - change of address I guess. The credit cards stopped being used a good few years ago, it's all online now.

I started in '74 and made my 71st donation last week. I had many years when travel and work made it impossible, but I hope to make the ton so I can get my "I'm a little bleeder" badge.

My blood must be very good because they always mark the paperwork A+.

[Andrew]

Just curious to know what the colour of the name label is inside the cover of the blue booklet, and if this is significant ?

Someone told me Yellow means something.

[Andrew]

Yes I had that issue on the early 90s after travelling in South America. There was scare about Chagas disease (trypanosomonas cruzi - may not have got the spelling right). This is a blood borne parasite that a bug that lives in mud huts in rural S America transmits. You can live with it for a few years while it makes holes in your heart muscle or something.

Tooting BTS gave me the same brush off but about 18 months later they sent out new letters saying they now had a new analyser to test donors who might be affected so we could rejoin.

[Adrian]

In message <s7r7tc$19ae$ [e-mail]>, Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> writes

A lapsed donator.

I started off with a small blue book (about credit card size when closed), then moved onto the coloured cards as I passed 25 and then 50 donations.

They used to come into work to take donations, and work were happy to host them, and allow us the time to make the donation. Then the transfusion service decided to stop coming (rumour has it down to cost cutting, we had more people wanting to donate than they could accommodate). Since then, it has been a long round trip to the nearest centre, and no doubt having to pay to park there as well, so I haven't donated recently.

Hmm, I've just been looking for my card and book), and I can't find them, so no idea what the inside colour was. . Adrian

[Joey]

That you are a jew.

[Allan]

I have been donating whole blood since about 1983 (I recently went through the process to check for platelet donation, but I didn't have enough of them) and am now a little shy of 100 donations.

Over the years, the blood donation service have increased testing (to cover S America disease etc) because otherwise they'd have no donors left because people travel more widely (well, they did before the C* word).

I have to travel a bit further as the donor service stopped coming to my village/town but that's fine as I usually tie it in with some other errands elsewhere. Equally, they only came to the local village hall twice a year, and it was often not a convenient day for me, and I donate

4 times a year, so finding a donor centre around that schedule means moving around a bit. The permanent donor centres work best for me as they tend to have apointments available most days: driving a bit further for the permanent donor centre works for me if it fits my schedule.

Here's the current colour bands/listing:

[Max Demian]

I assume the 1000th isn't for whole blood donation...