To celebrate World Blood Donor Day yesterday, Palau held a blood drive in Koror, hoping to get more people to donate. “It’s very difficult to get blood donors, and we need to have the blood bank filled up all the time” Chin said.
At 11:30 in the morning yesterday, Chin said they only had three volunteers so far. “Unfortunately, there were three persons who donated blood. And you know what? It only takes 20 people to fill up the blood bank, 1 unit per person,” explained Chin.
According to Chin, some people are afraid to donate blood because of myths that they could get fat.
However, there were few people who have been regularly donating blood to Red Cross. Fuanes Oiterong is one of them. He has been a regular blood donor for five years already.
Oiterong was hit by a car years ago and was saved by blood donors. “I was in a coma for one and a half month,” Oiterong shared. “So I’m doing this as a form of paying it forward. I want to save lives too, the same way they saved mine.”
Oiterong has been one of the Top Ten Blood Donor awardees in Palau.
World Blood Donor Day is an opportunity to honor people like Oiterong who donate blood in order to save lives, without expecting anything in return. Yesterday, Palau Red Cross Society has once again presented 10 people with Certificates of Appreciation for regularly donating blood.
“This is a special month so we’ve been doing the blood donation every week,” said Chin. Red Cross was on its third week holding blood drives as part of its celebration of the World Blood Donor Day. The first week was held for Ngarchelong and Ngaraard, the second week was for Ngatpang, Ngardmau and Ngaremlengui, this week is for Koror, and next week will be for Tobi, Sonsorol, Angaur and Peleliu.
On Thursday, they will be holding another blood drive at Koror State Assembly Hall. Chin said, donors should be 115 lbs., between 19 to 60 years old, and should not be on any form of medication.
