Sunday, August 12, 2012

National Blood Bank Visit

On 9th August we went to the National Blood Bank for a visit. Very educational indeed. Learned about the whole blood, plasma and platelets harvesting and how they are used. Years back, when you need blood transfusion, every packet/unit of blood you use; you will have to replace it by getting friends and relatives to donate. Now, you don't have to. All blood supply comes from the National Blood Bank (In Klang Valley only). You pay a standard price of RM20 per unit/packet of blood used. 

Reese at the auditorium fooling around. Here we were given an introductory talk about the blood bank and what they do.

The start of our visit. Lot's of labs...

Our tour guide explaining to us about various things they do at the blood bank. They have over 400 staff and 60 doctors working there. 

A nice area for donors to snack and rest after blood donation.

This is where walk in donors donate their blood. 

State of the art equipment are used to separate donors' blood into 3 components. Plasma, platelets and red blood cells (which is 'pump' back into the donor's body)

A donor donating his blood.

Do you know that if you give birth in HKL and a few other government hospitals, you can request that your baby's cord blood be harvested and store in the national cord blood bank for free?? No need to pay a few thousand ringgit and yearly maintenance fee to private blood bank.

2 comments:

Nina @ BabyBoon said...

reeses's educational trips r really cool! and man if i'd knwn that harvesting baby's cord blood is free in hkl i'd have given birth there instead! hahaa

LittleLamb said...

Oh...I should have taken note. Actually I got one question to ask... Can a human change blood type over time???!!! Maybe next visit, I will get a mother to ask.