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Today in 1667 - First documented human blood transfusion
The first fully-documented human blood transfusion was administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys, eminent physician to King Louis XIV of France, on June 15, 1667. He transfused the blood of a sheep into a 15-year old boy, who recovered. Denys performed another transfusion into a labourer, who also survived. Both instances were likely due to the small amount of blood that was actually transfused
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World Blood Donor Day - June 14th 2009
It's World Blood Donor Day, an annual day around the globe to celebrate the amazing gift of life that blood donation and transfusion gives to thousands of people every day, and especially to promote volunteer blood donation (as opposed to paid donors), as this ensures the safest supply of blood. 'If you call them, they will come...'SpainItalyCanadaTesting a donor's blood pre-donation for
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Boiiiinnng! Donor services boss jumps for pastures greener
In 2008 NHS Blood & transplant took on a new Director of Blood Donation, Andy Young. Here's Andy.Andy's previous experience was as a top boss at the O2 Arena. Here's the O2 Arena.This certainly rose a few eyebrows - and sneers - among the writers of this blog. It is a worrying sign when NHSBT management think that a great candidate for a director is one from the commercial sector, with no
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Birmingham Processing Lab 1965 - 2009
A tribute. Thousands of lives were saved by blood products from this lab. Colleagues and hospitals will feel the loss.Please click on photos for large versionThese are the centrifuges that spun blood at high speed to separate out the different types of cells. Now they are still.This row of now-idle Compomat machines pressed the blood after it was spun to push the plasma into a separate bag from
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Birmingham Processing closure solidarity protest
These pictures are of the staff of Birmingham Blood Centre, from the labs and from transport, protesting to show solidarity and anger on the day that Processing was transferred down to Filton, Bristol. 3rd April 2009.Click on photos for large version
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Health and safety reps beat bosses' no chairs rule
The unpopular OTP ('Operational Transformation Project') working pattern imposed clunkily by NHSBT management on blood collection teams a few years ago has many flaws according to donor carer staff. One which caused great health concern, with a increasing rise in occupational health referrals, was the attempted removal of chairs for staff from donor sessions.Union health and safety reps from
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Union official's last minute hot air
Last week (26/03/09) the Evening Mail ran this story covering the closure of Birmingham's blood processing, quality monitoring and NAT labs. Tomorrow will be their final day.Please click for a larger readable version.Read the story online here.It is based on a press release from full time Unite officials. This blog has objections from the very first sentence which says: 'Union leaders are trying
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Night shifts bad for workers' health - Supercentre runs 24 hours
It was reported in today's news that 37 women in Denmark have won the right to compensation after it was proven that working night shifts long-term was linked to them developing breast cancer.This link was suspected as long ago as 2001. Read more in a report on the research done into it here. Cancer is not the only health concern around night working. Humans are not nocturnal (we are diurnal, the
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IWW Blood Service Valentine's Day of Action
On Saturday 14th February 2009 West Midlands IWW held a cavalcade to raise awareness of cuts taking place at the Birmingham blood centre this March.The IWW is a union with members working in the National Blood Service. They will be affected when the local blood processing lab shuts and transfers its work to a new centralised ?super-centre? in Bristol. Staff believe this is a risky plan which
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Greetings on International Women's Day
To celebrate International Women's Day today this blog is posting a story that began in September 2006. 84 workers, 82 of them women, making medical equipment in Turkey went on strike for over a year, fighting against gross abuses by their employer Novamed.Following is a list of some of the abuses as alleged by the woman workers of the union: * Married woman workers are not allowed to become
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IWW Valentine's Day Blood Service protest - 14th Feb 2009
On Saturday 14th February the IWW is taking a mobile protest to hospitals around the city, to inform the public and healthworkers about the looming closure of the Birmingham blood processing lab in March. This vital link in the blood supply chain is to be transferred down to Bristol under a centralisation regime, with the loss of around 70 jobs, leaving local hospitals? blood supply at the mercy
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Furious letter from Canadian blood service workers union
Last month the Nova Scotia Union of Public & Private Employees (NSUPE) sent a storming letter to the Canadian Blood Service CEO on behalf of their very frustrated members working in blood collection. Their experiences of the high pressure piled onto them as a result of poor management decisions are shared by donor carers this side of the pond.Click here to read the letter in full and the response
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'Midwifery Matters' Autumn '08 - article on NBS restructuring
This is an article by Morag Forbes published in the Autumn '08 issue of 'Midwifery Matters'.Restructuring of Britain?s National Blood Services:Why we should care, and what we can do!Author?s note: At first sight, this article may seem ?off topic? for Midwifery Matters. I decided to write it after hearing from friends working in the blood service. While their job is different to ours, many of the
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Minutes from Leeds Scrutiny Committee regarding NBS strategy
Leeds Scrutiny Committee, which examines proposals for changes in public services and resources, recently held a meeting which was attended by union stewards representing the NBS staff, and management and HR representing the directors and their strategy of proposed lab closures.The Committee was extremely angry at the way that they felt that they had been left out of the consultation process
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Article on restructuring of US transfusion service
NY Times article about reorganisation of the Red Cross blood tranfusion service in North America. Apparently regulators have found that the transfusion service in the USA has numerous problems - one of the causes being that they are too big, and costs of re-organisation are running far in excess of what was predicted...
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'No-show Gisela Stuart urged to quit hospital committee'
A recent Birmingham Mail story revealed that Gisela Stuart, Labour MP for Edgbaston (location of Birmingham's blood centre), and also stakeholder governor of Birmingham University Hospital Trust, failed to turn up to any of the Trust governor meetings that were held in the last 12 months.NBS workers at the Birmingham centre were extremely unsurprised to hear about this. Some members of staff
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New social networking site from the Transplant Trust
The Transplant Trust has launched a new social networking site called thetxspace.com'thetxspace is for everyone connected with the world of transplantation. Clinicians - Donor families and friends - Patients - Supporters - Carers.Join the network today!'
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Yorkshire Evening Post - 'Fears over plans to move Leeds blood centre'
Published: 25th July 2008 By Katie BaldwinHealth ReporterCouncillors have raised concerns about plans to move services from a blood processing centre in Leeds. The NHS Blood and Transplant Service (NHSBT) wants to scale down the Seacroft centre in Leeds, a move which would affect up to 70 staff.That could mean blood processing and testing no longer took place in the city.Leeds City Council's
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NBS SOS benefit party - July 19th
The IWW, a union with members at the National Blood Service, is hosting a fundraising night on 19th July in London, to raise money for the campaign against service cuts.There will be a fundraising club night organised by JustDefy! for the NBS campaign in Camberwell, south london, on saturday the 19th of July from 11pm. There is a free festival on camberwell green that day too, and we are the
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WORLD BLOOD DONOR DAY - 14TH JUNE
Today is World Blood Donor Day, an annual event to promote and highlight the amazing and altruistic gift of life which donors give. Find out more here.This year's theme is 'Many happy returns', a title chosen to remind us that it is important for donors to give not just once, but regularly, in order to maintain safe stock levels for our hospitals. Find out about how and where you can donate near
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Demonstration! Watford, Friday 11th April
STOP SLASHING THE BLOOD SERVICE! Protest at the NBS bosses' HQ Friday 11th April 2008 The bosses at the National Blood Service want to close labs and slash 600 jobs in the NBS. Now they are hiding the findings of a review into whether or not this is safe to do. Join us at this protest to demand the review findings are fully revealed, before
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More blood on the letters page
(Birmingham Mail, April 3rd 2008)Keep on writing to your local papers about the NBS cuts, and keep sending the clippings into this blog at this address:nbs.sos[AT]gmail.com(replace [AT] with @)
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Birmingham keeps the pressure on
Photos sent in of an awareness-raising street stall held last weekend in Birmingham by staff and their friends and supporters (click for large version).Keep up the good work out there - many people, including donors and recipients of blood transfusions, are still unaware of the proposed restructuring of our service. If you have any photos like this of street stalls or protests from your area then
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Joint unions' statement in response to the NBS strategy review
As a result of a national staffside meeting on Monday 25th February 2008, it was voted to issue the following statement.JOINT UNIONS? STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO THE NBS STRATEGY REVIEWThe NBS Trade Unions receive with great caution the outcomes of the review and revision of the announced National Strategy. At this point we cannot accept the proposed wholesale closures of laboratories and with
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Outcome of the Blood Service strategic review
The review of the NBS restructuring strategy is now complete and these are the outcomes.The outcry from hospitals, staff and the public at the dangerous and stupid proposals has meant that in the north and south-east, the board have been forced to scrap the idea of supercentres. One excellent victory that we can claim is that the Newcastle centre is now to remain fully open, and Sheffield also
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Blood Service News