Canadian Blood Services is coming to Lake Country to accept donations of the gift of life.
CBS has arranged to host a mobile donor clinic set up at the Winfield Memorial Hall, 10130 Bottom Wood Lake Rd., on Wednesday, Aug. 30
The one-day clinic is hoping to fill the 50 available donation appointment openings between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Gayle Voyer, regional program coordinator for Canadian Blood Services, said it will be the inaugural blood donor clinic set up in Lake Country, an initiative supported by other local partners including Lake Country Rotary Club, District of Lake Country, George Elliot Secondary School and the Lake Country RCMP and fire departments.
Voyer said the mobile clinics help bolster the blood donation efforts of the permanent clinic site in Kelowna on Dilworth Drive, across from Orchard Park Shopping Centre.
Similar clinics are held across the province so it’s a matter of scheduling the mobile support service to come here.
“We have done these mobile clinics out of the Laurel Packinghouse in Kelowna so we were looking for an opportunity to expand and the opportunity to host it in Lake Country for August became possible,” Voyer said.
Last year, four mobile clinics were held in Kelowna, and the hope is to expand that to eight across the region in 2017.
Because donated blood has a shelf life of 42 days coupled with the ongoing high demand, the push for blood donations never really ceases, Voyer says.
“It’s a constant need, especially right now for negative type 0 and positive type 0. The reality is medical patients need donated blood so we need to continue collecting it.”
She added in Canada’s blood donation world at the moment, the campaign is on to have 50,000 donations by the end of June to help facilitate potential needs throughout the summer, a time of the year when school is out and people are on vacation which leaves donating blood not at the forefront of our minds.
“In Kelowna, we still have 400 open appointment times between now and the end of June so we are rolling up our sleeves and trying to reach that target before summer starts.”
Voyer also noted that while schools will be closed this summer limiting the opportunity for students to help raise awareness of the mobile clinic coming to Lake Country, she said the high school program is engaging with students across the valley about the awareness of the need to donate blood.
The youngest age a person can donate blood is 17.
“We have been pretty successful with that as all the high school in Kelowna participate, two in Penticton, two in Kamloops and a couple in Vernon.
“And that same message is also extended to students at UBC Okanagan and Okanagan College.”
To find out if you are qualified to donate blood, Voyer encourages potential donors to take the eligibility quiz online at https://blood.ca/en/blood/eligibility-quiz before booking an appointment.
For more information, call 1-888-2-DONATE.
To be prepared for a blood donation, donors are asked to be well hydrated (drink two litres of water the day before and one litre the day of), be generally feeling good, eat before you donate and bring photo ID.