Princess Supports Call To Encourage More Donors
The Bermuda Hospitals Board and Bermuda Blood Donor Centre today thanked Hamilton Princess & Beach Club for their support on encouraging more blood and apheresis donors in Bermuda.
In support of World Blood Donor Day 2021, which is celebrated on 14 June, Hamilton Princess has donated a weekend stay at the hotel and champagne brunch which will be offered as raffle prizes to Bermuda’s most active and also new donors, as well as sponsoring an online advertisement to encourage blood donation.
The Bermuda Blood Donor Centre will be putting the most active current regular donors who have donated blood or apheresis into a raffled for the stay at Hamilton Princess. New donors from the past 12 months, from today up until 18 June will be included in a raffle for the champagne lunch. Winners will be drawn and announced on 18 June.
Dr Eyitayo Fakunle, Consultant Haematologist at BHB, comments: “We are very grateful for this generous support with the goal of encouraging more blood donation in Bermuda. Hamilton Princess has been a regular participant of the Corporate Blood Donor Competition and so they are not only helping us encourage donation in Bermuda with their generous support, but they encourage their staff to give blood too. It is wonderful that we can thank our most active regular donors and celebrate the new donors this year. They are all helping save lives.”
Tim Morrison, General Manager of Hamilton Princess, comments: “No one knows when they might need a lifesaving blood donation and so it’s incredibly important for the public to be generous: you never know whose life you might save.
“As such, Hamilton Princess & Beach Club is proud to be able to do its part to support the Bermuda Hospitals Board in their drive to get as many people out ahead of World Donor Day on June 14th, with a weekend stay and a champagne brunch up for grabs.”
From the BHB factsheet it states that you are ineligible to donate if you
“have spent an accumulative total time of three months or more in United Kingdom and/or France between 1 January 1980 and 31 December 1996.”
Can anyone explain the rationale for this? It seems like it would be preventing lots of healthy potential donors.
I donated blood for many years but the BHB no longer wants my donation because I was in the UK for a few months during that period! Something to do with mad cow disease?
It does, I’m one.
From the Google: Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or Mad cow disease, also called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), is a fatal disease that slowly destroys the brain and spinal cord in cattle. People cannot get mad cow disease. However, in rare cases they can get a human form of mad cow disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which is also fatal.
The problem is the incubation period is in the order of years. It’s highly unlikely, 25 years on that it remains a significant risk, but there you go.
Google “mad cow disease”.
What is the risk of ‘mad cow disease’ compared to the risk of not getting a blood transfusion to save your life?
The risk must be now be infinitesimal and by now the likeliest incubation periods must be well passed. People want to donate, but you have prevented this for decades.
I was told it was the American Red Cross and we come under them so have to follow their rules ( many moons ago), but from a one time 24 hour emergency (UK), universal donor and many pints donor in Bermuda, this is very frustrating.
Why can’t Bermuda negotiate their own special terms? We are in no way comparable to the largest economy (sometimes) and one of the largest countries in the world with hundreds of blood banks and thousands of hospitals!