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FEAR is keeping Singaporeans from donating blood - even as the national blood bank prepares to face yet another seasonal crunch.
A fear of pain and a fear of needles are the top two reasons why people avoid giving blood. Housewife M. Lim, 26, said she had wanted to give blood, but admitted to having 'no courage' to do so.
She said: "The fear of needles just keeps me away." A third reason is a lack of knowledge on the importance of blood donation, said Ms Charmaine Tan, a spokesman for the national blood donor recruiter, the Singapore Red Cross (SRC). As a result, just 70,000 people or 1.5 per cent of the 4.68 million Singaporeans here donate blood regularly, according to SRC figures.
In comparison, at least 3 per cent of Australians, or over 525,000 of the 19.7 million Australians give blood, according to figures from the Australian RedCross Blood Service website. With Chinese New Year just four weeks away, the national blood bank, under the Health Sciences Authority, is expecting another crunch.
The slowdown began since the Ramadan fasting period and the end-of-year school examinations.
People are too busy preparing for the festivities or away on vacation, said Ms Tan. "Bloodmobile Organisers, such as organisations, companies, and civic groups, are also often less keen to organise community bloodmobile drives when most employees are clearing their leave," she said.
Bloodmobile drives for collecting blood are held in neighbourhoods or offices to encourage more people to donate blood without going down to the blood bank's Outram facility. The problem, though, is that as collection dips, usage has also increased slightly. Ms Tan said that usage increased by 10 per cent last month, compared to the same month in 2006.
This was due to emergency bleeding cases as well as major operations.
With the Lunar New Year public holidays falling on a Thursday and Friday, thus creating a long weekend, Ms Tan hoped donors would not forget the blood bank.
"We hope people will make provisions to come down to donate blood before going on vacation," she said.
Singapore hospitals need about 350 bags of blood daily to meet transfusion needs from patients who are anaemic, undergo organ transplants, or suffer from major burns, for example.
Sadly, it's not only fear or forgetfulness that were the only reasons offered to my paper.
It's too inconvenient, saidMr Joel Yong, a research and training manager.
The 27-year-old said that he had not come across a blood donation drive since he left school and started working three years ago.
He said: "What is not visible is easily forgotten."
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