Tuesday, February 17, 2015
By Lindsay Johns for the Daily Mail
Published: 10:03 GMT, 14 June 2012 | Updated: 11:24 GMT, 14 June 2012
Donating: Today marks World Blood Donor Day, and nationwide campaigns will try and encourage new donors Today is officially World Blood Donor Day and also marks the launch of the second National Blood Donor Week. I have been a blood and platelet donor for the last ten and five years respectively and it is something I believe in with an all-consuming passion and, if you’ll forgive me, a proselytising zeal.
Today, events taking place up and down the country will be aimed at recruiting new donors, especially in the build up to this summer’s Olympics, when British blood banks need to boost stocks by 30%.
For the last five years, I have been going every two to three weeks to St. George's hospital in Tooting to be hooked up to a machine for an hour and a half to donate platelets. No, don’t worry, I hadn’t heard of platelets either before I started! Apparently (and I’m certainly no scientist), they are a part of the blood which is often used to help people who’ve had chemotherapy. And all you need to be eligible to donate are good veins and a high platelet count. The staff at St. George’s are both hugely professional and incredibly friendly and the whole experience from beginning to end not only takes under two hours, but is actually a real pleasure. Now, each time I go, it feels like I’m amongst friends and family, such is the warmth, care and love of the solicitous and dedicated staff.
We’ve all got our own reasons for donating. My own Damascene moment came after my best friend tragically lost his mum to bowel cancer (diagnosis to departure in six heart-breakingly short weeks), my girlfriend at the time's dad was having protracted chemo for non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and then my own dad and uncle were diagnosed with prostate cancer, all within weeks of each other.
Challenge: British blood banks need to boost stocks by 30% in advance of the London Olympics in July Yet each time I go, lying in the donor chair hooked up to the platelet machine with the needle in my arm, sipping a cup of sugary tea and munching on custard creams, I start looking around and wondering in passing where all the other Black and Asian donors are? Especially in Tooting, South West London, where if you close your eyes the pungent aromas which assail your nostrils on the high street are reminiscent of New Delhi. What’s more, many of the doctors, nurses and carers who work there are themselves from Black or Asian backgrounds, so it makes the contrast all the more stark. Now of course it may well be just the time of day I go to donate, but I’m not sure. Judging by what I have seen, I'm curious as to what could account for some parts of the Black and Asian communities’ ostensible reticence to come forward and donate blood or platelets?
As truisms go, it's probably the oldest of them all. We've all got the same colour blood. We're all part of the same human family and we all make up the fabric of this nation’s community. We all partake of the benefits of living in this society, so therefore we should all share the same desire to fulfill our civic duty.
Minority: Only 5% of the population able to give blood actually donate, and the demographic of those donors are predominantly white middle-class individuals According to their statistics, the National Blood Service collects 8,000 blood donations every day across England and Wales. But shockingly, only five per cent of the eligible population donate blood, and appallingly less than three per cent of the total number of donors are from Black and Asian backgrounds. This means that on average, just over 200 Black and Asian people donate each day across the whole of the UK. And the figures are even fewer for platelets. In a country as massively multicultural (and now, thankfully, proudly multicultural) as Britain, I think that’s both atrocious and in serious need of being rectified! If we look across the pond to the USA, it’s unfortunately the same, sad story. In a population with over 40 million African-Americans and even more millions of Hispanics, there is still a huge paucity of Black and Hispanic donors.
Support: Former Apprentice winner Tim Campbell has been involved in campaigns to try and encourage higher numbers of the black population to donate blood Contrary to popular belief, blood and platelet donation is terribly important as it tangibly saves lives. It’s not some geeky, recondite pursuit for anoraks and liberal do-gooders looking to assuage their consciences. Moreover, it’s not just for middle-aged white guys in cardigans from Bromley with names like Colin and Frank (the major donor demographic). It’s for everyone, irrespective of your race, colour, class or creed.
So why are many Black and Asian people seemingly reluctant to have a needle stuck in their arm for the greater good? Is it a cultural thing? Or is it merely bad recruitment by the blood service? In all fairness, the National Blood Service has been assiduously trying to recruit more Black and Asian donors for years.
A few years ago they launched a high profile campaign to encourage more people from ethnic minorities to give blood and even recruited the support of a number of celebrities, such as Tim Campbell (The Apprentice) and Chris Bisson (East is East) to try and highlight the need for more people to donate from their own communities.
Now, unless there's institutionalized racism or a subtle form of sanguineous apartheid operating at the blood bank (which I seriously doubt), we urgently need to encourage more social philanthropy in our communities. Could it be down to sheer laziness? I doubt it. The various Black and Asian communities are several of the most industrious and hard working that this country has. Scared of needles? Come off it. What's a little pin prick compared to saving a life? Too busy trying to make ends meet? Well, irrespective of whether we’re hustling to pay the bills or working as a barrister, we should always try and make time to help others, if for no other reason than one day we might be that other (and, ironically, on the evidence of history, Black and Asian people in this country traditionally have been that other).
So is it a cultural thing? Well, maybe our reticence to donate is borne out of it never having been the done thing at home, compounded with the immigrants’ fear of institutions, let alone hospitals. But irrespective of our parents’ (or now in many cases grandparents’) cultural traditions or customs, all of us have a duty to help others. In my book, stupidity and ignorance can just about be excused, but selfishness and apathy can’t.
I suspect that the answer in large part is due to the sadly still nascent state of the educated Black and Asian middle class in this country. Obviously one doesn’t have to be educated to give blood or platelets, or for that matter to have a social conscience and a fully-functioning moral compass, but middle class people (of all colours), due to less straightened financial circumstances, in general tend to be the ones who volunteer for charities and do nice, caring, philanthropic things with their spare time. Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs dictates that self-actualization, and with it charity, can only really begin in earnest once one is in a stable position oneself. Hopefully as Britain’s Black and Asian middle classes continue to grow, more donors will come forward with alacrity.
They always say in voluntary circles that time is the most valuable thing you can give. It isn't - it's actually your blood, because time alone doesn’t save human lives, but blood and platelets can. And yes, don't believe the “little pinprick” hype: it can (and often does) hurt a bit. But compared to the look of pathos, pain and humility indelibly etched onto the dignified but gaunt face of my ex's dad as he lay in his hospital bed, visibly weak and trembling after his chemo, yet valiantly clinging to life for all he was worth, that's a tiny price to pay for the greater good. All of us should be perennially mindful that we are our brothers’ keepers. As Terence, one of the founding fathers of Latin literature and himself a Black African slave so memorably said, "I am a human being, and I consider nothing human alien to me."
For more information on giving blood or platelets, go to www.blood.co.uk or www.blood.co.uk/platelets to find your nearest donation centre
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