People are asked to come along and save a life at a new West Lothian blood donor centre.
The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) have announced a new Blood Donor Centre will open in The Centre, Livingston.
The Centre will open on Monday August 2 and be accessible to all West Lothian donors.
This is the first time SNBTS have opened a donor centre for over 20 years, and is the first of its kind out with Scotland’s main five cities (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness).
The opening times at The Livingston Donor Centre will be: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm, Thursday’s from 12pm to 3pm and 4pm to 7pm and Saturday from 9am to 12pm and 1pm to 4pm.
Vincent Mooney, SNBTS, explains: “This is an important announcement to as many people as possible to come forward and give blood from the West Lothian area. The Blood Donor Centre will be located at The Centre, Livingston and will initially be open six days a week. This is a state of the art venue designed to provide a safe and welcoming venue for both donors and staff. SNBTS aim to collect 35 donations per day and as each donation can be split into three separate parts (red cells, platelets and plasma), this means the Livingston Blood Donor Centre will help to save or improve the lives of up to 630 patients in Scotland every week.
“NHS Scotland is currently very busy, so demand for certain blood groups has increased. Opening our new venue at The Centre means West Lothian donors will be able to play a huge part in ensuring the stability of Scotland’s blood supply at this time. Traditionally, we collected 60% of all blood donations in the community – places like church halls or town halls. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many of these halls across Scotland have not been available to us, for very good reasons. The Livingston Blood Donor Centre is a fixed site, which means we can offer a consistent service to donors as we continue to recover from the Pandemic.”
“Therefore, we are asking people to donate here rather than in the following communities for the time being. The communities affected within the West Lothian area are:
“West / Mid Calder, Kirknewton, Broxburn, Bathgate, Whitburn, Newbridge, Linlithgow, Kirkliston and Armadale.
“Please come and support Scotland’s patients. Our records show we have 2754 active donors in the West Lothian area (an active donor is someone who has donated within the last 12 months). However, we have many more people who have not given for a while, or have got out of the habit of donating. We’d like to welcome these people back. As we are unable to visit these communities for the coming months, we are asking all school pupils and former pupils (aged 17 and over), to come forward now. In previous years, SNBTS have delivered a highly successful school talk programme in West Lothian to S5 and S6. Although we may be asking you to donate in a different venue, it is very important you come to Livingston Blood Donor Centre if you can. We don’t want to lose you.”
Patrick Robbertze, Centre Director at The Centre, Livingston said:
“We are delighted to welcome the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) to The Centre, Livingston and honoured to be the first shopping mall in Scotland to have their new state-of-the-art Blood Donor Centre.
“The location is absolutely perfect to help spread the word about the importance of giving blood.
“We are really looking forward to working closely with the blood donor team to help them reach their goal of saving or improving the lives of up to 2500 patients in Scotland every month with blood donations from our local shoppers in the community and visitors from further afield to the mall.”
To give blood at the Livingston Blood Donor Centre book an appointment at: http://www.scotblood.co.uk or by phoning 0345 90 90 999.
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