In all my forty-five years I have never donated blood; not being a fan of either pain or needles, I have always shied away from doing so.
Today the WP Blood Transfusion Service is holding a donation clinic at our offices so, knowing how important it is to be a donor, I decided that today would be the day of my first donation. I filled in the forms and presented myself to the “vampires”, only to be told they didn’t want my blood. Seemingly the fact that I had my gall bladder removed in January means I can’t donate until August. Great, now I have to go through working up the courage to make my first donation another time.
craniac's place 
Interesting…. The blood people are always calling me to donate and I haven’t done so since my surgery. … And I’ve been feeling guilty, but now I know I shouldn’t. 😉 Feel guilty I mean.
I really feel that the Blood Bank in South Africa ought to start paying people a nominal rate to supply their blood.
They will get much more blood in if they pay for it. They certainly charge for supplying it.
I’m not so sure about the viability of that.
It seems likely that the very people that would want to make use of this for a few bucks might well be the ones with the highest HIV risk.
What do you do, pay people as they donate, then go through the expense of testing for HIV only to discard the blood that has cost the donation payment and the cost of testing; or make them wait until their blood is tested as safe before paying them?
Besides the problem of contacting people that may not live in regular housing, where is the incentive for people to make the donation if they have to wait a few weeks (or however long it takes) to be paid, and may no actually get paid at all?
The American Red Cross won’t take my blood anymore because I’ve spent time in Africa (Ghana). Before that, I’d given 2 gallons…