KELCI PASCOE
The Corsair
Hospitals are constantly filled with patients in need of urgent care. The lives of many of these patients depend upon whether or not that hospital has a large enough supply of blood. The Northwest Florida Blood Services needs a minimum of 176 pints of blood per day to properly supply our local hospitals. This is a gargantuan goal, but it is obtainable. PJC students and faculty can lend a helping hand to our local hospitals simply by donating blood.
On Oct. 29, The Northwest Florida Blood Services held a blood drive on the PJC Pensacola campus. The blood drive was open to all people that wished to donate their clean blood.
“We have been very fortunate to have such wonderful support from the PJC administration, staff, and students,” Meghan Dittmar, community relations representative for The Northwest Florida Blood Services, said.
Many PJC students and faculty have been donating blood this year.
“We have collected 363 pints of blood so far in 2009 on the PJC Pensacola campus, which has the possibility of saving almost 1100 lives in our community hospitals.”
Most donations are 1 pint of blood out of an average 8 pints of blood in the human body. The Oct. 29 blood drive was able to collect 68 pints of blood from 84 donors. That is certainly quite an accomplishment for both PJC students and for The NWFB Services.
Some blood types are more common than others.
“O positive is the most common blood type and thus usage of this type among the population is typically higher,” Dittmar said. “The type that is donated most often is generally O positive and A positive.”
Other blood types such as O negative are rather uncommon and rare, and are therefore very desirable.
“We often see an elevated need for type O donors due mostly to the fact that O negative is the universal blood type,” Dittmar said.
O negative is the universal blood type because there are no antigens present on the blood cells therefore the recipient cannot launch an immune response against it no matter what antibodies they release.
The bloodmobile staff is trained in phlebotomy and correct handling of blood making them well qualified to draw blood.
Adrienne Hardman, PJC student and A positive blood type said, “The woman who drew my blood was amazingly sweet, knowledgeable, and made me feel very comfortable. As weird as it may sound, I actually enjoyed it.”
The procedure is fairly straight forward. Employees of The NWFB Services are in charge of drawing the blood.
“She asked me some questions, took a finger sample of my blood, took my blood pressure, and had me drink a glass of water. Then she inserted the needle and took exactly one pint of my blood,” Hardman said.
There was a great incentive for students to donate blood. A free movie ticket to The Rave, a Waffle House coupon, and a t-shirt were offered to those who donated a pint of their blood.
“To be completely honest, hearing about the free movie ticket and coupon definitely motivated me to give blood,” Hardman said.
PJC did a fantastic job in adequately advertising for the blood drive. Many people, including Hardman, found out about the drive from the flyers posted all over campus.
Giving blood can sometimes be an intimidating and frightening thing. The average human only produces between eight and ten pints of blood per day, so giving a pint of blood is like giving one-tenth of your daily blood supply. However, giving blood is an easy way to save a life.
“Every three seconds someone needs blood,” Dittmar said. “You may not ever know the person that you saved, but by taking the 30 minutes from your day there is no question that you will be having a profound impact on their life and on the lives of their loved ones. Simply put, it is about life.”
If you would like to have the opportunity to donate blood PJC will be hosting another blood drive from The Northwest Florida Blood Services Nov. 30 from 9am-3pm, between buildings 5 and 1. For more information, call 473-3853.
For more about the Northwest Florida Blood Drive on Oct. 29 watch Episode 3 of Pulse.
The following is information from a pamphlet by Northwest Florida Blood Services called: Did You Know?
Need
• 1000+ blood donations are needed every weekday of the year to meet the blood demand of patients in the Tampa Bay, North Florida, South Georgia and Southern Alabama regions.
• Blood or blood products improve, sustain and save more than 750 lives in Tampa Bay and the North Florida, South Georgia, and Southern Alabama regions each day.
• Florida Blood Services operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as your community blood center.
• FBS serves more than 80 hospitals and over 30 ambulatory health care facilities in 33 counties in the Northwest Florida, South Georgia and South Alabama regions as well as five Tampa Bay counties.
• FBS collects blood at 23 donor centers and on 47 bloodmobiles and 7 portable donor units 364 days a year. Eighty percent of the blood collected is through this mobile fleet.
Impact
Florida Blood Services (FBS), Northwest FBS, and Southeastern Community Blood Center, known as “FBS” are independent, community based, non-profit 501(c)(3) health care organizations, dedicated to the mission of providing quality blood services and exceptional customer service.
• One out of every 15 blood donations in the US are tested in FBS laboratories. Over 8,000 blood samples arrive each night from more than 30 other blood centers and medical facilities from Massachusetts to St. Croix, US Virgin Islands making FBS the third largest donor testing service in the United States.
• Each year, FBS bloodmobiles travel nearly 500,000 miles across a 38 county area to reach out to corporations, organizations and community blood donors to make the donation process convenient and to ensure blood needs are met.
• FBS’ transport team crosses 1.25 million miles to carry blood units for testing and delivery to hospitals, ambulatory centers and airports.
• FBS is an official Donor Center and Apheresis Center for the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP). Tampa Bay area volunteer marrow donors have provided lifesaving Marrow or Peripheral Blood Stem Cells 275 times throughout our affiliation with the NMDP.
• FBS is one of only seven U.S. blood center hubs designated by America’s Blood Centers to provide blood to our military in times of need.
Your Health
• Nine out of ten people who live to age 70 will require a blood transfusion or a blood component transfusion at least one time in their lives.
• FBS operates the transfusion service at 14 hospitals in the Tampa Bay region and performs approximately 116,000 crossmatches per year to provide compatible blood for transfusion. FBS participates in the American Rare Blood Donor Program identifying, freezing, and shipping donations that lack certain blood antigens.
• Over 620,000 blood components are manufactured annually from donations for organ transplants, open heart and major surgeries, cancer, other disease treatments, joint replacements, as well as the treatment of burn and accident victims.
• FBS has a professional, therapeutic medical team on call 24-hours a day to perform approximately 2,400 lifesaving medical procedures each year for patients in Tampa Bay area hospitals.
Your Community
• FBS, the FBS Foundation and the NFBC Foundation are not subsidized by the Government, the American Red Cross or the United Way.
• FBS serves as a center of learning for medical residents and personnel, medical technicians, medical technologists, blood banking technologists and phlebotomists. FBS offers an on-line Specialist in Blood Banking program in conjunction with the University of Texas Medical Branch.
• FBS relies exclusively on volunteer blood donors to ensure that a safe and sufficient blood supply is available at all times.
1999 East Nine Mile Road, Pensacola, FL 32514 Phone 850-473-3853 • Fax 850-473-8377 • www.nfbcblood.org
