Blood Donation
on Shona in Sierra Leone (Sierra Leone), 01/May/2011 10:25, 34 days ago
It had been four months since Sandra and I went to donate blood (Omar the blood transfusion technician will only let women donate every four months - instead of every three - for reasons we are yet to fathom…!). So on Easter Friday we both headed to the blood bank to donate again. This time he did check our haemoglobins before letting us donate (a healthy 13.5 for me – the highest Hb I have seen in a long time – usually I’m pleased if its above 6 in my patients…!) We are always on the look out for people to donate blood here – we often need blood in an emergency and if the family are unable to donate, we need extra units available to give to sick children and mothers (our blood bank also supplies blood to the maternity hospital). It really can be life saving. So anyone in Freetown –come and give us your blood! I’m hoping there might be some pictures this time (I left out the gory picture of the huge needle but that’s my blood!).