StemCell Therapy

SYDNEY, N.S.

Its National Blood Donor Week in Canada, but some Cape Breton Regional Municipality residents are feeling left out.

I was so surprised when the clinic closed here several years ago, said Maggie Lynne MacNeil of Sydney, who made it a priority to donate blood when the service was here. It was a motor vehicle accident involving her husband seven years agothat opened her eyes to the importance of blood donation.

MacNeil said shes grateful Canadian Blood Collection Services provides this important service and has contacted them to find out if a clinic might reopen in the municipality.

Monetary donations are important everywhere and can do a lot of good, she said. Blood can save lives. We lost it, but I think if it was brought back people would support it more than ever. There's no way we can donate blood here. That doesn't even make sense."

Rene Horton, spokesperson for Canadian Blood Services, said they do receive questions, comments and requests to return (the service) to Sydney.

We receive approximately five or so per year, she said.

However, a return to Sydney is not on the horizon, said Peter MacDonald, director of donor relations for the Atlantic region.

MacDonald said as of now, there are enough events in their clinic plan to meet hospital demand.

Id never say never, but theres no immediate plans to reopen the site, he said.

The blood collection clinic which was located on Grand Lake Road in Sydney closed in May 2015.

MacDonald said the decision to close was due to a decline in hospital demand for blood and blood products in the area.

Donations wasnt the issue, he said. We had certainly dedicated donors in Sydney and all the CBRM, too, he said.

There is currently no place in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality to donate blood. The nearest place to make a donation is the mobile clinic that visits Port Hawkesbury four or five times a year. Those two-day visits have a 173-unit target and consistently meets and exceeds the target.

This is National Blood Donor Week and Sunday will mark National Blood Donor Day.

The goal for Nova Scotia is 667 donations and as of Thursday, the Canadian Blood Collection Services needed 204 blood donations for the rest of June to meet the target. Those appointments were already booked to meet that goal.

Less than four per cent of the population of Canada are active donors. There are more than 20,000 active blood donors in Nova Scotia.

One donation of blood could potentially save three lives, as three components are drawn from each:plasma which can be frozen and last for up to a year, red cells which have a 42-day shelf life and platelets which only last for seven days.

There is also always a need for O negative blood, the universal blood type.

MacDonald said there are other ways Cape Bretoners can help including by joining the stem cell registry online at http://www.blood.ca. Participants are sent a kit, swab the inside of their cheek and then return the swab. The results are placed on the stem cell registry.

The need to grow the registry is there, particularly with males 17-35. As well, the registry is in need of ethnic diversity. Currently, the makeup of the registry doesnt match the population in Canada as the patient population continues to become more diverse.

MacDonald said they are grateful to those in Cape Breton who have given blood and continue to do so at mobile clinics.

I would also assure readers of the Cape Breton Post that the fact that we dont collect there doesnt mean that hospitals there dont receive all the help needed, he said.

Theres no risk that hospitals in Cape Breton dont receive blood and blood products when they need it.

Meanwhile, MacDonald said the COVID-19 crisis has impacted the blood service in a few ways. For example, since mid-March, some mobile clinics have been shut down due to the pandemic.

Even with the loss of capacity, we were still able to meet hospital demand, he said, adding demand decreased due to the pandemic as well because elective surgeries were cancelled, there were fewer traumas as less people were moving around and on highways, for example.

As the province begins to reopen and elective surgeries are rescheduled, hospital demand will begin to increase.

Its starting to get back to pre-COVID levels, he said. Fortunately some of those sites not available for mobiles are now reopening.

The full schedule for mobile units can be viewed at http://www.blood.ca and people can download the donate blood app.

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Excerpt from:
It's National Blood Donor Week, but nowhere to donate in Cape Breton Regional Municipality - The Telegram

This entry was posted on June 15, 2020 at 6:47 am and is filed under Stem Cell Negative. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |