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Mark Guydish
Sunday, February 06, 2000 Page: 2
Blood is in short supply in the region, again, and in order to encourage
people to stick out their arms, I started thinking maybe we could hold a
celebrity donation. Some prominent folks who came to mind:
Mayor Lou Barletta. Looking at layoffs, frustrated unions, a decimated
street department battling the heavy snow and a nasty deficit, Lou should be a
natural donor. When behind closed doors, he’s probably sweating blood.
City employee unions. Maybe they’d be better at getting blood from others
rather than giving their own. Bless their souls for earnestly wanting to
improve their pay and benefits – by and large, they deserve it. But the fact
is, trying to get the deficit-riddled city to live up to former Mayor Mike
Marsicano’s generous, secretly negotiated contracts is, well, like trying to
get blood from a stone.
City Administrator Sam Monticello. Here’s a man the Red Cross should
consider hiring full-time, at least if he lives up to his reputation. If the
guy can hoist the city from its pool of red ink, maybe he can make blood from
thin air.
Mike Marsicano. No, never mind. I like to think of him as a dangerous blood
clot that clogged the city for years until voters finally removed him.
Hazleton Area football coach John Yaccino. If he can’t give himself, he can
bully the blood out of others.
The Hazleton Area School Board. Presumably, with the board stacked full of
reformers, they are no longer saving their best stuff for blood relatives.
All area municipal solicitors. It would just be nice to see tax-paid
attorneys getting something sucked out of them for a change.
Local blood shortages are serious and, unfortunately, chronic. Joyce
Bradbury, executive director of the Hazleton Chapter of the American Red
Cross, said the two city hospitals use about 3,900 units of blood a year, but
the local chapter has been collecting between 3,200 and 3,400 units annually.
On a more regional level, one Wyoming Valley hospital announced it will
postpone elective surgeries because of the shortage.
All blood donations get funneled through the Hanover Township Red Cross
Center and distributed to the region’s 42 hospitals, Bradbury said. If the
Hazleton chapter collects 3,900 units a year, it just means we’re “pulling
our weight.”
I admit I’m guilty of contributing to the shortage. Being a simple act of
omission, it’s easy to do. A healthy person can donate a pint every 56 days,
or five to six times a year. I don’t do that.
It doesn’t sound like much, until you start multiplying. You can start
donating at age 17, and there is no upper age limit. So assume you contribute
until you near 70. That would be about 325 pints, or 40 gallons.
That’s a lot of life saving.
Bradbury figures the local chapter falls short of its goal primarily
because of the aging population and the busy schedules most of us keep.
Donation, after all, takes time out of the work day for most of us.
As far as the aging population goes, Bradbury said many people might
wrongly believe there is an age limit, or might believe they can’t give blood
because they are taking medication.
“There are lots of medications accepted today because they can be screened
out of the blood,” Bradbury said. To know what medication you can take and
still donate, call the regional blood center at 1-800-432-8045.
As for busy schedules, that’s been my excuse for years. The local chapter’s
regular collection is every Friday from 9 a.m. to noon at the Hazleton General
Hospital office and education building. Fridays are hard for me, because it’s
deadline day for writing and/or editing what goes into this section of the
paper.
But the chapter also holds 40 other drives beyond the hospital grounds
during each year. The next two are 1-6 p.m. on Feb. 21 at the Nuremberg Fire
Hall and Feb. 24 at St. Francis of Assisi Church in West Hazleton.
Of the last three times I tried to donate, I arrived too late twice and got
there just before they folded up the chairs the other time. So pencil me in
for early afternoon at St. Francis. Care to join me?
“People live very, very busy schedules,” Bradbury said, “but if they
know about the shortage, they donate more.”
Prove her right.
Mark Guydish is Greater Hazleton Editor. Reach him at 459-2005 or e-mail at
markg@leader.net.