I’m another person who’s ineligible because i happen to have spent more than 3 months in the UK over the past 20 years.
I’m also troubled by the irrationality of the complete ban on anyone who’s had gay sex since the late 1970s. Interestingly, this does not seem to be common practice in all countries.
In Australia, for example, “male to male sex” only draws a 12 month deferment.
Of course, for many (most?) gays, this means an effective lifetime ban anyway, because not many people are going to voluntarily go without sex for 12 months, and they’re certainly not going to do it just for the privilege of assisting a program that bases its policies on such irrational criteria.
I used to donate. I’ve still got my little faux gold pins for the gallon and two gallon marks around someplace. Heck, I even used to donate time although all I ever was assigned to do was sit at a table, take names and flirt with the lasses at the juice 'n cookies station. Ok, that last one was a freebie of my own initative.
But the last time I gave blood, they gave me the most incompetant “nurse” (or student or janitor or whoever it was) ever. She missed the vein several times and finally just wiggled it around until the red started flowing. Afterwards I bruised like the dickens (no biggie) and felt continual sharp pains in my arm. To this day, some ten years later, if I have any weight pulling at my extended arm (such as carrying a bucket of water) it still aches painfully along my inner arm, centered at that spot. Heck, I can extend my arm, press on that spot and it’ll ache for me.
I wouldn’t try to tell anyone else not to donate and I can appreciate why it’s important but, from my reckoning, God in His heaven only saw fit to give me two arms and the blood donation folks already managed to screw up 50% of my total arm allotment. So I’m keeping my pins and calling it quits.
I’m working up to it. I’m incredibly needle-phobic. I donated blood once six years ago, and the needle-phobia arose sometime since then. I’ve put off important medical tests and was almost not been able to work in two different hospitals because I panicked when faced with a TB test.
The key to going through with it, for me, is having a “stick-er” who is patient and doesn’t belittle my fear. Unfortunately, I’ve had experiences with many cruel nurses. “Oh, for God’s sake, it doesn’t even hurt!” Oh, yes, it does. Don’t lie to me. “Why on earth do you want to work in a hospital?” I don’t see what this has to do with anything. And then there are the inexperienced phlebotomists who hurt and bruise and dig around…yeah. It’s tough.
So I’m working up to donating blood. I’ll need to have a very patient and skilled nurse…or else I’ll be getting up out of that chair and having a go at it some other time.
Back in my college days, I used to donate whenever I could. Like Jophiel, I still have my Gallon Donation pin around here somewhere…
But then, I had an experience similar to hers. The nurse sticking my arm had about as much finesse as Inspector Clousseau. About five minutes after I had donated, I was vomiting violently and had to be helped back to my dorm room. I had a giant bruise on the inside of my elbow for two weeks. I’ve thought about donating again, but it just brings back the nausea and pain. Someday hopefully I’ll get back on that horse, though.
Well, all I know is that when my husband donated, he got a little card each time. If he ever needed blood, all he had to do was produce that card and it would be free. So, there is some benefit.
You can still donate blood in Spain (although they’ll want the information). They test it three ways to Thursday anyway.
One of the first times I donated blood was a huge drive in Barcelona. The hospitals sent people to every college; later they put up posters showing, per major/college:
how many potential donors, assuming nobody ever had hepatitis (students+workers)
how many donations
% donations over potentials
Highest figure: ChemEng at IQS, with a 94% donations (my school). Pity we weren’t even a thousand!
The top was comprised of Engineering, Physics and Chemistry.
The lowest figures were for the Nursing School, Medical Schools and Journalism. We wanted to believe that the first two were because they were regular donors without the need for drives, but we were still pretty :dubious:
Yowza! I’ve never come across a program like that. It would make one hell of a blood-donor recruiting tool if it could be applied universally. I’m assuming that this was a specific program offered by his employment [it’s perfectly OK for you to mention that he works in a prison ]?
Sorry if that sounded snarky, but it just seems such a totally bizarre idea to me, sheltered child of a socialist system that I am. So, how does blood donation work: if organisations like the Red Cross get it for free, do they then sell it to hospitals (eurgh…still can’t get over buying blood)? If so, do donators get some sort of compensation? And if not, why do hospitals charge for it?
Blood donations don’t cover the cost of processing and storing blood, especially once it’s at a hospital. The Red Cross - or other non-affiliated, similar agencies - merely provides the framework to get blood then sends it to hospitals. I don’t know if they charge hospitals for it.
“If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until you see how much it costs once its free.” -P.J. O’Rouke, American Philosopher and Automotive Journalist.
I gave blood as an undergraduate a long, long time ago. I did it to get over my fear of needles. It didn’t work. I wish it did not scare me so much, but it does.
PDF warning: According to this document on the Red Cross website, they do not charge for their blood products - unlike for-profit plasma donation services, etc., which do pay their donors - but do pass along a smaller processing charge, which results in that being passed along to the patients/their insurance.
I can’t donate blood for lots of reasons. I’m too light, I’ve recently been to a malarial country, my haemoglobin is always around 11, my medication is off-limits and in Ireland they worry I might have CJD. So if I put on 10 pounds, ate lots and lots of red meat, stopped my pills and waited long enough I’d be able to donate, but I don’t think that’s a route I’m going to go down.
My dad’s O neg, but he can’t donate any more because of his medication, one of my sisters doesn’t weigh enough, the other one was anaemic the last time she went, and now she’s ruled out for another year because of a trip to the Amazon and my mother was taken off the books for years when they found out she grew up in Zimbabwe.
Currently, mum is back on the books because they’ve done some sort of immune assay, and she has no signs of previous malaria, and she donates every 10 weeks. She used to give platelets, but she became allergic to the anti-coagulant they use, so she can’t do that any more.
When we go back to Belfast, I’m going to get my husband to go as at least one of us should, and he’s fit, healthy and not on medication. The Irish don’t want his blood in case he has CJD too.
It’s sad that so many willing donors can’t, and so many suitable donors won’t.
The long and the short of it is, it would be nigh-impossible for nationalised healthcare to cost more to the nation (ie. as a percantage of GDP) than at the moment, since the massive costs of the current US system come from the schizophrenic mix of public and private provision, and if employer-provided health insurance were replaced with government (state, federal, I dunno) provision based on increased taxes, average take-home wage would probably increase, since Americans already pay for their healthcare with a big bite out of their paycheck and through taxes that refund companies and pay for Medicare and Medicaid.
But, to return to the OP, I also dislike people who refuse to donate blood, and I do so (although not nearly as often as I should).
Well, there’s homophobia as in gay barmen getting beaten to death for being queer, and then there’s homophobia as in gay would-be blood donors getting their widdle feelings hurt over being considered a statistically unacceptable HIV risk. The latter kind of homophobia isn’t enough to sway me against the needs of people who need donated blood to save their lives, but who am I to cry out on your sense of priorities?
Oh, except that this is the Pit so I can call you a dick if I like.
[disclaimer]Many gay Dopers express regret over not being allowed to donate blood, but do it in such a manner as not to deserve the “widdle feelings hurt” line, and don’t go around demanding that people should boycott the whole process. Them, I sympathise with.[/disclaimer]
I don’t mean this to be flip to readers who are understandably irritated at the Red Cross’ utter inflexibility on the issue … but I always chuckle at the way the question is put:
(If you’re a male) Have you had sex, even once, with another man since 1978?
It’s the inclusion of “even once” that gets me.
“Have you had sex with another man since 1978?”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Even once?”
“Oh! Even once? Yeah, sure, of course, I didn’t know you meant ‘even once!’ Then yes.”
My bloods no good to them. I’d donate regularly but they won’t take my blood because I have sex with men. One thing I really hated was working for Home Depot the managers would encourage employees to go down and donate blood. I was frequently asked why I didn’t donate(my sexuality wasn’t a secret) I’d tell them they won’t except my blood. The responce of a few managers was just lie.
My favourite is the question about ever being given money or drugs for sex. I reply dolefully (and truthfully) that I can’t even remember the last time I was bought a drink for it.
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