More than 250 blood donors are needed to come forward in Orange before Christmas to prevent a blood shortage during the holiday season.
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Blood service spokesman Ronny Maroun said the blood products are vital for the treatment of cancer and trauma patients.
“Cancer patients are the biggest users of donated blood and rely on platelets to make it through chemotherapy,” he said.
Twelve-year-old Joshua Johansen is now in remission but received dozens of donations during his cancer treatment and is among those urging people to come forward.
Joshua attended the blood donor centre in Kite Street on Tuesday to say thanks to those who make the life saving donations.
“Thank you for donating, the people that get given blood are very appreciative of it, it’s a great gift,” Joshua said.
Among those he met on Tuesday was Jeffrey Nash who made his 97th and final donation that morning before he turns 81 on January 1 and will no longer be eligible to donate.
He said he first started donating as part of an initiative of the Apex Club in Canowindra which he was a member of, so he and other members traveled to Eugowra to donate their blood.
“The blood bank people from Forbes went there and it was something we thought could be useful,” Mr Nash said.
“It doesn’t take much on the donors part, all you have to do is turn up and give blood.”
Joshua’s mother Alison Johansen said her son battled an aggressive cancer for nine years between 2004 and 2013 and received dozens of blood transfusions and a bone marrow transplant to save his life.
“He’s relied on blood transfusions since 2004 … he had a lot in 2013 when he had the transplant done,” she said.
“He was first diagnosed with retinoblastoma, he lost and eye to that one and he’s visually impaired in his good eye, and then in 2012 he was diagnosed with esthesioneuroblastoma, that was an adult cancer that was in his lymph nodes in his neck and there was a mass on the base of his skull the size of a man’s fist.
“Then he relapsed in 2013 and it went to the brain and then he had a stem cell transplant using his own stem cells, he had that at the end of 2013 and now there’s no evidence of disease.”
After seeing what her son went through and in an effort to help others she now also donates blood.
“It’s the greatest gift you can give and it’s saving someone’s life,” she said.
To make an appointment to donate phone 13 14 95 or visit donateblood.com.au