Happy World Blood Donor Day to all those blood donors in our communities, for their selfless generosity and life-saving donations. Meet the transfusion team at our John Hunter Hospital Laboratory.

World Blood Donor Day is cel­e­brat­ed on 14 June. This year’s cam­paign slo­gan, “Give blood, give hope: togeth­er we save lives,” high­lights the life-chang­ing impact blood donors have on those in need.

Every blood dona­tion is a gift of hope. It can mean the dif­fer­ence between life and death for patients in need of transfusions.

Mak­ing sure our first respon­ders have access to blood prod­ucts is the job of NSW Health Pathology’s Trans­fu­sion teams, who man­age the sup­ply of these pre­cious blood and plas­ma dona­tions and ensure they get where they are needed.

“Every­thing stops in the lab once we get these phone calls,” said Caitlin Fos­ter, Act­ing Senior Med­ical Lab­o­ra­to­ry Sci­en­tist – Blood Transfusion.

“The abil­i­ty of our staff to jump into action to get these blood prod­ucts ready in a time­ly man­ner and packed up for the police or aeromed­ical team is tru­ly remarkable.”

Caitlin has been work­ing at our John Hunter Blood Bank for over 5 years and  says it’s an incred­i­bly reward­ing role.

“Know­ing we are assist­ing in pro­vid­ing the best patient care, espe­cial­ly in these urgent and often vul­ner­a­ble moments in the patient’s life is incred­i­bly reward­ing,” she said. A big thank you to every­one work­ing with blood prod­ucts across NSW Health, like the staff pic­tured here from our John Hunter Trans­fu­sion team – Ana, Kel­ly, Amber, Caitlin and Melissa!

World Blood Donor Day on June 14 is a great reminder of the impor­tance of donat­ed blood and blood prod­ucts for the treat­ment of patients across the health system.

If you are able to donate – now is a great time!

If you’d like to roll up your sleeves and donate blood, vis­it www.lifeblood.com.au, call 13 14 95 or down­load the Donate Blood app.

Find out more about our trans­fu­sion pathol­o­gy ser­vice here: www.pathology.health.nsw.gov.au/services/pathology/transfusion

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