Middlesbrough woman with sickle cell disease urging for more blood donors
The NHS says the need for blood is all-year round
A woman from Middlesbrough is urging people to continue donating blood to save her life and others.
40 year-old Dami Olorunfemi has sickle cell disease. She is originally from Nigeria but lives in Middlesbrough.
She is re-iterating calls for more donors as people like her need regular blood exchanges to help ease the pain.
She said: "I've lived with this pain all my life. I grew up with it and my parents had little knowledge of this and whenever I complain of pain in my bones, pains on my leg, they were like 'did you have a fall? Is there anything that happen to you in school?'
"I would tell them 'I don't have a fall. I'm just feeling that I can't use this hand anymore because at that moment, the blood cells are stuck and there's a pain going on in that particular part of the body.
"I can remember my teacher would call my mum saying 'Dami could not come out with her friends during break, what's happening? She's complaining that she can't stand on her legs and she's been crying.' My parents would come to school and carry me back home. I lived with that pain for two to four days because until I get relief, I can't cope and I can't do anything.
"It's a life threatening ailment that we have to just live with except if you have proper medical treatment, which I am enjoying now.
"I keep taking this medication on a daily basis just to regulate my blood system to make sure that I can live a healthy life. It can be so hard when you plan for a thing and boom, here comes a crisis. So this thing has really slowed down a lot of things about my life.
"All I want is to live a life free of pain. I want to be like a normal human being that can plan for holidays because this thing has really caused a lot in things in me that I can't plan, because I don't want to go out with friends and then this crisis comes up spoiling their joy and happiness.
"We need donors. As a sickle cell person, you can just come into the hospital for an exchange but when there's no blood? How do we survive it? That's why I'm standing as an advocate for people to just please come to our aid. Help us so that we can also live a normal life."
It comes as the NHS says stock levels are lower than they would like.
Claire Broere, TAS lead nurse for NHS Blood and Transplant based at James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough, said: "The need for blood carries on all-year round and I know that for a lot of people when they think of blood donation, they think that they're donating for a one-off emergency situation but actually two-thirds of the blood that people donate are actually used by chronic conditions.
"It's just important that we have these stock levels so that we can continue to improve the quality of life for lots of people who rely on blood transfusions on a weekly, monthly basis.
"A unit of blood is split down in the manufacturing process centres; some people can have a red cell exchange, you're looking at plasma exchanges, there's platelet exchanges and they're also looking at white cell transfusions.
"We really, really wanting to increase the donors of the black heritage people. There's a lot of patients out there that require different types of blood donors like for example, some of our sickle cell patients, we need a best match of people with the same heritage.
"There's donor centres dotted all over the country. There are evenings, weekends, through the day appointments. Please register for your appointments, go online and we'll get people in to donate blood so that we never get to the siutation where we don't have blood supplies."
Chief Executive of NHS Blood and Transplant, Dr Jo Farrar, has described blood supplies over the past year as 'challenging', and today thanks the incredible 2 per cent of the population who keep the nation's blood flowing - while urging others to be 'one in a million' and become a regular blood donor.
Dr Farrar said: "There are many thousands of people who donate regularly and help us keep patients alive. Thank you. You are amazing. You keep the NHS going and save and transform thousands of lives a year.
"Our stocks over the past 12 months have been challenging. If we had a million regular donors, this would help keep our stocks healthy – you'd truly be one in a million.
"Please book an appointment today, experience how good it feels to save lives, and come and do it again in a few months."
Health Minister, Baroness Merron, said: "I am extremely grateful to the many thousands of people who donate regularly – the blood you donate saves people’s lives, from mothers in maternity wards to victims of car crashes.
"However, the NHS is in urgent need of more lifesaving blood donors from all backgrounds. We are working alongside NHS Blood and Transplant to make donating blood easier than ever before, opening up new donor centres and making appointments available closer to home."
How you can help
Register now and book an appointment online, on the GiveBloodNHS app or by calling 0300 123 23 23.