An urgent appeal is being made by the Australian Red Cross lifeblood service due to a desperate shortage of type-o blood with supplies at their lowest level in a year.
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00:00 Well, Lifeblood's donation centre here in Melbourne CBD opened not that long ago, but
00:06 already people are filling these seats, ready to roll up their sleeves and give some of
00:12 the good stuff.
00:13 Even the waiting area is full as well.
00:17 And that is great news because Lifeblood has actually put out this urgent call, particularly
00:22 for O positive and O negative blood.
00:26 And I'm joined by one person who has that blood, Brendan as a party.
00:31 Brendan, you actually saw this on ABC News Breakfast earlier this morning and decided
00:36 to come in.
00:37 Yeah, that's right.
00:38 I've just wandered into the office, television's going in there.
00:40 I saw the call and because of my blood type, I thought, "Oh, I better get down."
00:44 So I did.
00:45 Now, you've got some gold running through your veins at the moment, haven't you?
00:49 Yeah, the O negative.
00:50 So one of the, I believe, one of the rarer blood types, but gets a lot of use.
00:54 So yes, it helps me to get in.
00:57 How does it make you feel knowing that your donation is just so critically important,
01:02 particularly at times where we've got low levels like this at the moment, and what it
01:05 means to people who receive your blood?
01:08 Yeah, well, I think it's an easy thing to do for me, come down.
01:11 But I do get a bit of a buzz.
01:13 Lifeblood, after your donation gets used, you'll get a text from a hospital somewhere
01:17 in Australia saying you've just given life or assistance, whether it's to an accident
01:21 victim or a cancer patient or something.
01:23 So yeah, I get a buzz out of that.
01:24 So it's good.
01:25 Oh, that's great.
01:26 And apart from that feeling of altruism, there's also a good reward at the end of it, isn't
01:30 there?
01:31 Yeah, there's always a few snacks.
01:33 And I can assure you there's a sort of hot chocolate and party pie and sausage roll waiting
01:37 for me on a table over your shoulder.
01:39 So I'll get there shortly.
01:40 Well, I won't keep you away from that very important party pie for much longer.
01:46 But you just can see how important it is to be able to make sure that we get as many donors
01:51 as possible.
01:53 Lifeblood says that it's not because there aren't people who are coming in and donating.
01:59 It's actually because the demand is just simply so high.
02:01 They've seen a 3% increase in demand in the past year alone.
02:06 That's gone up to a 10-year high.
02:08 Partly that's due to the ageing population and a range of other factors, of course, as
02:13 Brendan just mentioned, those sorts of last-minute accidents that nobody expects, where you really
02:18 need those vitally important, particularly the O blood groups.
02:23 Now universal blood type is O negative.
02:26 There's just 7% of the population that has that, although they make up 16% of hospital
02:32 orders.
02:33 And O positive, well, that's one of the most common blood types.
02:37 Around 40% of people in Australia have O positive.
02:41 And that means that if there is an accident or somebody urgently needing blood, chances
02:46 are it might be somebody that you know or even perhaps one of your family members.
02:51 So Lifeblood is saying, please get on the phone or on the website.
02:55 You can book, you can even walk up and simply roll up your sleeves and donate.
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