Bendigo Blood Centre calls on community

RESIDENTS are being urged to give the gift of life and donate blood.

Australian Red Cross Lifeblood has revealed that towards the end of May, regional Victoria needed an additional 1000 blood donors to meet demand.

As part of that need statistics revealed 41 per cent of donors at the Bendigo Blood Donor Centre cancelled or rescheduled their donations last month, leaving 44,000 donor couches empty.

Lifeblood spokesperson Shae Burns is urging donors to follow through with appointments.

“People can be enjoying their holidays or catching up with friends and families and getting back to their everyday routines.” she said. “We’d like to remind everyone that the need for blood never stops.

“One in three people cancelling appointments on the day doesn’t leave us much time to find someone else to take their place and it’s a worrying trend as the demand for blood is at its highest in a decade.”

Australian hospitals are using four per cent more blood for cancer treatment, surgery, blood disorders and obstetrics, when compared to the last two years.

Ms Burns said that the COVID-19 lockdowns saw more donors booking appointments, however this trend declined once restrictions started to ease.

“Throughout the COVID period we would put the calls out for blood donors and people were very supportive, leaving your house to donate blood was one of the reasons why you could leave your house,” she said.

To try and draw more first-time donors, the Bendigo Blood Donor Centre is opening its doors in a special Plasma Power Day on Sunday, 30 May.

“The Bendigo centre is open six days a week including many evening sessions, but we just wanted to have that extra session to make it even more accessible for people,” Ms Burns said.

For more information on donating blood and the event, head to fb.me/e/28uOxmbzq.