Sikh and you shall find in quest for right blood

Amarjeet Singh, a Sikh, gives blood in Melbourne yesterday. Photo: Luis Enrique Ascui

VICTORIA might be an ethnic melting pot, but as it turns out, its blood supply is not as richly diverse.

As part of its campaign to recruit more donors this year, the Australian Red Cross Blood Service is trying to obtain more blood from different ethnic groups to ensure the state’s blood supply represents community needs.

Transfusion specialist Erica Wood said that aside from commonly known blood types like A, B, O and Rhesus, many other groups were found in varying frequency among people from different parts of the world.

As Victoria had become more multicultural, she said demand for these types had increased, prompting the service to encourage more people from Arab, Asian, African, Pacific Island and some European backgrounds to donate.

”We have a very diverse patient group now with all sorts of conditions that are more common among people from particular ethnic backgrounds,” she said.

”However, our donors have primarily come from a European background.

”We’ve always had good support from a range of community groups, but we would like to increase that so we’ve got really good representation.”

The need for rare blood types was felt this year when the service had to import blood products from New Zealand and interstate to help four pregnant Polynesian women because there were no matching donors in Victoria.

”It’s an ongoing issue for us. We’ve had a lot of people with rare blood types that could not be easily found among Victorian donors,” Dr Wood said.

She said it was important to provide compatible blood to people with special needs to ensure their condition was properly treated and to minimise potentially fatal adverse reactions.

Harkirat Singh, from the Sikh Federation of Australia, said he started mobilising his community to donate this year to boost supplies not only for his own people, but also for the broader community. ”Our religion says that we should do these sorts of things so there is equality in the world,” he said before giving blood yesterday.

”We are organising for people to come in every three months. We’re very proud to be part of it.”

Dr Wood encouraged Victorians to donate, especially over Christmas when donations tend to drop.

”We all hope and expect that blood will be available when we or our family and friends need it, but we might not give much thought to how it gets there,” she said.

”We really need a blood supply that will help everyone.”