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Hi, my name is Emma Schreiber and I'm
a Community Relations Officer at the Australian Red Cross Blood Service.
For the first time, this year the Red Cross Blood Service
is running the SA University Blood Challenge.
Now, as part of this challenge, UniSA, Adelaide Uni and Flinders Uni
are all competing to see who can save the most lives by donating blood.
Hi, I'm Dr Brian Dale, I'm the senior lecturer in Haematology
I teach Haematology and Transfusion Haemostasis courses
at the University of South Australia.
It's really important for people to give blood,
you can save someone's life.
One in three people in the general population of Australia need blood transfusions.
It's often because they have some sort of cancer
that's the most common cause of a need for a transfusion
or a blood disease, any sort of traumatic events where people are likely
to lose blood and hence lose their life, will require a blood transfusion.
There's a big discrepency between the number of people who donate
and the number of people requiring blood transfusions or blood products.
[ Have you ever donated blood before? ]
I haven't actually, no.
No, I haven't.
Yes, I have.
Yeah, I do, it's quite nice afterwards to have that feeling.
Yeah, I really should. It makes me really squeamish, blood does.
I'm scared of needles.
They brought the van in, so it was pretty easy to just put your name down and give blood.
It's pretty easy and pretty quick and me and my brother usually go together
and you have like a progress meter on the side.
We usually try and pump and see who can do it the fastest, so it's good fun.
Well, at first I was pretty nervous and I'd heard that they were pretty big needles
but they're actually, it's pretty painless and it makes you feel pretty good afterwards
and also you usually get free food and drinks afterwards as well
so good encouragement to do it.
If you're interested in making a blood donation
we have static blood donor sites across Adelaide.
We also have a mobile unit and donor-mobile that visit several locations
across the state, including some university campuses.
To register your donation for the SA University Blood Challenge
jump onto donateblood.com.au/clubred
Search for your university group and then link up your donor number with the group.
You only need to do this once and then your donations will be automatically added to the tally.
Giving blood is really a simple way that you can help out the community.
It only takes an hour of your time and every donation saves three lives.