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The reasons for this can be very personal or simply a matter of marketing correctly.

For many years I did not give blood because I had a real fear of passing on some of myself and hence my failings to other people. I dreaded that others would somehow inherit bad traits from my gift. It was silly, of course, but even although I knew that blood was tested thoroughly, I still could not bring myself to do it.

That is until my daughter became ill and had to be given blood. It saved her life and I am eternally grateful to those people who gave their blood for her.

I asked myself, what if someone else's child needed blood and everyone refused to give it? The answer was that everyone did not refuse, and I felt ashamed that I had been so selfish as to put myself first. From then on I have donated blood regularly.

It was easy to do this when I lived in a community that was in an area heavily populated. The blood bank came to my village regularly, and I had the added choice of slipping out in my lunch hour from work if I wished. However, I have now moved to a rural area where there is no such service. The city is a long way away and I have now retired anyway so that I don't have access to this venue either. Sometimes they set up the blood bank in another area that is not easy to reach, and it is often not convenient on that particular day.

I understand the philosophy behind this method of obtaining blood. It originated when people did not have any means of travelling to a centre and when communication was vastly different. Nowadays, most people can travel easily, and the message that blood is required can be quickly and easily sent to the masses through television and Internet.

Getting individuals to commit to donating their blood is a bit more difficult. Many people are scared of needles, some do not know that blood donors do it voluntarily; others think they do not have the time, and still others think that it is not their problem. This surely is a matter of education. The time when everyone is in a learning curve is when we are at school or college. Students need to be seventeen years old to donate blood, but the idea that is something worthwhile and imperative for the survival of many sick people can be offered to them at an early stage in their life so that it becomes a natural "to do" task, like taking a driving test.

Given that we have a wholly informed population committed to the idea, and the blood banks in the right places for convenience and accessibility, the only problem left is to fund it.

Instead of a mobile team of doctors and nurses travelling to areas for one day only, it would be more practical to have a permanent arrangement at the local hospital that everyone can easily reach. The staffing costs would be the same or even less as the nurses could be part of a hospital team, and the operational costs would be much less than the current costs for travelling all over the country.

Let's do it.

Learn more about this author, Dorothy Skinner.
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