BLOOD DONATION Have you ever experienced donating your blood before?

Do you know how many blood donors in this country? Sources from New Straits Time provides that, the statistics from National Blood Centre has indicated only 3% of the Malaysias 29 million population donated blood in the past two years. Its medical officer, Dr Ombala Shanmuga said that the figure is very far from the targeted 10 %. Countries like the United States have 30 per cent of its people who are blood donors while in Malaysia, we have yet to achieve the 10 per cent target. Many people refused to donate blood because they are afraid that they will lose blood, they will get infections, and sometimes gain weight. I have been doing a lot of reading about this topic, besides I have experienced in donating my blood before and I am sure many people still not fully aware the benefit that they can get from blood donation. So, the goal of my speech today is to inform you about the three parties who will benefits from blood donation which are first the hospitals organization, second the recipients of blood and lastly the donors itself. Now let's start with benefits of blood donation to hospitals organization. Donating blood regularly helps meet the need of blood supply by several government and private hospitals. Giving blood on a regular basis is necessary to ensure the hospital do not faced any blood shortage. Adequate blood supply is very important as to be prepared if there is an emergency for surgeries and births. Like have been occur in year 2010 sources from The Star Online, several government and private hospitals had face a shortage in blood supply because of discouraging donor response and in order to overcome the problem, the National Blood Centre had to cooperates with various quarters organised blood donation campaign at various locations to increase its blood stock. Besides that, regular blood donation also helps the organization implemented blood stock forecasting in a move to help maintain adequate blood reserves. For example, source from The Star Online on (June 17, 2012), National Blood Bank now is planning to do blood stock up to six months. This method implements in order to help the blood bank overcome the usual seasonal blood shortages that tend to occur over long public and school holidays. Next, let's look at the benefit to the recipients of blood donation. Do you know one pint of donated blood can save up to three patients? There is no substitute for blood and if you donate blood, you actually can help in saving lives of many patients. Sources from WHO provides that, around 92 million units of blood donations are collected globally every year and blood is needed

every three seconds. There are thousands of patients need blood for treatments such as for surgical procedures and labours, chronic anaemia patients, Thalassemic patients and many more. According to Professor from University of Lagos, Prof. Sulaiman Akanmu, "blood donation is the right thing to do because you will be someone's hero that is, you may give a newborn, a child, a mother or a father, a brother, or a sister another chance to life.

Take a look at this picture, this is Caroline, she was born 16-weeks premature and weighing just only half kilograms. In the first three weeks of her life, she received five lifesaving transfusions. Thanks to blood donations, Caroline has a fighting chance to live. The thing that I want to highlight here, "You don't need to be a doctor to save lives, but you can save a life from blood donation that requires blood.

Then by the same token, blood donation also give benefits to the donor itself. Blood donation does not only save other person's life, but it is also good and give benefit to the donor. Donating blood improves your overall cardiovascular health. It can lowers the iron levels in the body which can help reduce the risk of heart disease. Researcher of University of Florida, Jerome Sullivan speculates that giving blood regularly reduces the amount of iron in the bloodstream. High blood iron levels can increase the risk of heart disease. It is true iron is very important and necessary for human life, but too much iron may actually damage the heart and circulatory system. Thus, by doing regular blood donation it can help reduce iron in blood, hence will potentially lower the risk of heart diseases.

Lastly, another benefits that donors can get from blood donation is free health screening. Every time you give blood, a medical technician, doctor or nurse will give you a free health screening. There will be an HB level test, as well as a blood pressure and body check. In conclusion, from what I have mentioned before, I can conclude that there are many benefit we can get if we donate blood, not only for oneself, but also the other people around us. The act and process of giving blood is safe and practically painless. It does not take a long time to make a blood donation. So raise your sleeves, and lets all save some lives!