Sam Cliffe

It's the red stuff that most people think of when they think about blood.

It's red cells.

And that's really used mainly in acute settings.

So it's pretty high turnover, if you like.

So obviously people get transfusions in hospital if they're anemic or lost blood or whatever.

But plasma is one of those amazing things that can be made into 11 life saving products.

And we manufacture it into a whole load of different products which can be used to treat kids with immunodeficiency disorders, to clotting disorders, to cancer, liver disease, a whole range of things.

Demand for those products is up.

If you've never had need for a blood transfusion, if you've had babies... Oh, I don't recall anybody saying, oh, by the way, your OPOS.

They might not have told you, but it'll be in your records.

No, no, we wouldn't know unless you'd donated with us.

We have no access to general practice records.

I don't know.

if we find out because we take a sample from every donor before they donate and we test it and we make sure that therefore the blood is the right type that goes into the right bag that goes into the right patient at the end it takes literally a minute our donor relations team can you say there's a blood drive here at NZME why don't we get the what's my type girls they can come in and guys and they can do that in 30 seconds let's do it should we organise it do you want to come around and test all these fellas and take their blood do you want to do it Michael