I went out for blood donation this afternoon and gave about 470ml blood to Australian Red Cross. I was asked to fill in the enrollment form as I am the first time donor in Australia. I was also asked a lot of specific questions by the nurse and had a test on my iron level before the donation.

As my blood was not going as quickly as my colleagues did, which caused me finish up about 15 minutes later than they did. I guess the part of the problem was I didn’t squeeze the red rubber ball that hard, and I noticed that every time I squeezed hard, the speed meter showed on that little machine telling me that my blood running speed actually doubled.

Anyway, the most important thing is I was feeling perfectly okay afterwards. We had some little biscuits, cheese, crackers and lots of cold drinks. No milkshakes as I had expected, but given that I had a big meal in Golden Age Motor Inn’s country style restaurant for a work lunch before that, I was happy enough

This is not the first time for me to donate blood. I had donated in China in about 1994 or 1995 when I was in Uni. So I knew I was going to be okay today as I had this experience before. I actually had a lot of thoughts about donation after I came to Australia, and from time to time when I see the mobile blood bank unit from Australian Red Cross showing up at different places, the thought actually becomes stronger. Now I finally made it and I was happy.

People often make it a big deal around donating your blood in China because they believe it damages your body and have huge impacts on your health. I think I am not being naive but I never had doubted even one second between maintaining my own health and giving my blood to people who might need more than I do. If you know that only about 37 percent of population is actually eligible to donate blood according to some research studies, you would figure out how important the health care system relays on non-profit donation from generous people.

Most people think donated blood is only used to help people who suffer traumatic incidents, such as accidents or burns, or in surgery, but in fact, the vast majority of donated blood goes to people with cancer. Other blood components including plasma and platelets are also vital. Plasma is used in bleeding patients, for children and adults with immune disorders, and to prevent some complications of pregnancy. Platelets are used to manage bleeding in surgical patients and cancer, including leukaemia.

So when think of a little bit outside of the box, your blood could be used to save more than one persons who might be dying, desperately needing help or relying on this sort of blood supply every day, you know that your bag of blood certainly counts and certainly will be used for someone for some reason. That’s why people say “you give money, you give food; you give blood, you give life”.

It’s very true. Actually, giving your blood is one of the most effective ways of donation. According to the Red Cross, blood typically costs the end user around $0.40/ml (cheaper than inkjet cartridges) or $200 for a unit of blood (~500ml) meaning that those who donate 6 times per year are essentially giving away around $1200 worth of tissue every year.

It’s way better than giving other things, such as clothes, food or money. Lots of people throw their money into charities or other social projects which they believed that so-called projects would benefit the community, but is this really happening? The money we give away to improve our social well being, such as education, government re-construction, health system, is largely manipulated by the people who manage the funds. Sometimes, they just went to Gods-know-where cyberspace and not been used wisely. So most of time we started with a big idea, lots of good wishes and intentions, but what had returned was so little even heart-breaking.