In a phone interview with Brett Lawrence, the Community Development Manager for Canadian Blood Services in Manitoba, we discussed the importance of the Brandon mobile and plans to increase outreach and awareness in Manitoba.
Currently, Canadian Blood Services has one permanent donor site in Winnipeg for all of Manitoba, out of which they operate the donor mobile that arrives at Brandon twice a month. Though the clinic was shut down in Brandon in 2017 due to not meeting donor quotas, “Mobiles specifically in Brandon do very well”, according to Mr. Lawrence. Despite a Canada-wide need for more donors, Brandon seems to have the opposite issue, with the mobile facing the unique challenge of appointments usually being booked up months in advance. The closing of the donor site meant that mobiles to nearby towns could no longer be operated out of Brandon. However, each donor mobile in Brandon receives about 100 units of blood per visit, which indicates that the location has retained a lot of donors from nearby towns who travel to the site. According to Mr. Lawrence, the demographic for Brandon is majorly an older generation, many of whom are consistently returning donors.
Though Canada can’t be considered to be in a blood shortage, as, according to Mr. Lawrence, hospitals are still able to meet demand in order to treat patients, they are still in active need for new donors. From Manitoba alone, Mr. Lawrence stated that the organization was looking to meet demand by adding over 3000 new donors every year alongside the returning donors. With that in mind, they hope to recruit new donors through different programs targeted at BU students in the future. Though they don’t have the ability to receive blood and plasma donations in Brandon, they hope to hold a stem cell registration event at Brandon University in order to add new donors to the stem cell registry. This would be particularly effective at the university-level as the organization looks for stem-cell donors between the ages 17-35 in good health, with most students being part of that demographic. Interested readers can also register online to receive a swab kit from
the organization, which they can use and mail back to have themselves added to the registry.
Canadian Blood Services also plans to make donating blood more accessible for university students, especially first-time donors interested in booking an appointment but finding it difficult to book a slot. With this initiative, students would have specific appointment times blocked off without having to book months in advance. As written by Mr. Lawrence, the instructions to do so can be read below:
STEP 1: Visit www.blood.ca and click “Sign In”
STEP 2: Sign into your account, or create an account
STEP 3: Click on “Partners” in the left task bar
STEP 4: Click “Join an existing team”
STEP 5: Begin typing your partner’s name (Brandon University) and the search results will pop up below.
STEP 6: Select “yes” and then click “join” STEP 7: Select “View team”
STEP 8: Book into the appointments reserved for the team under Team Appointments!
Dates reserved for BU students are:
November 28th – appts start at 14:35
January 30th– appts start at 14:00
February 27th– appts start at 14:00
March 13th– appts start at 14:00
Appointments can also be booked by scanning the QR code below:
Receiving blood in medical care seems to be a guaranteed resource made available by hospitals. It is easy to forget, as Mr. Lawrence emphasized that “people come in to donate blood for free. They take time out of their day for no money, just a snack and juice, and they give blood.” By donating, they make blood accessible for people in medical need, which includes patients with physical traumas, cancer, chronic illnesses and more. Observable demographics for blood donations remain to be the older generations, and Canadian Blood Services hopes to bring awareness on the importance of blood donation to potential younger donors.
As a current volunteer at the Brandon mobile, it’s incredible to see long-time donors who’ve come in consistently to donate blood (some having donated 100s of times), as well as the team that makes it possible. If you’re encouraged to donate blood, the mobile comes every two weeks on Thursday to Brandon from 2-8. For more information on booking appointments at eligibility, visit www.blood.ca.