Patrick Smith made his 200th donation on 15th February at Brick Knoll community church in St Albans and has urged public to donate
A former councillor and Chingford Mount resident who has been donating blood for over five decades recently celebrated his 200th full red blood donation.
Patrick Smith made his 200th donation on 15th February at Brick Knoll community church in St Albans.
He was motivated to donate blood after his cousin tragically passed away from leukemia at the age of 22. His cousin, who had qualified as a mental health nurse shortly before his death, had no access to blood transfusion.
Patrick experienced further loss in his family when another cousin also passed away from leukemia. He was 30 years old, and a talented photographer.
Patrick said: “Each time I donated I carried their torch and knew that when each blood unit is donated the human body will restore the 475ml of blood in 36 hours and haemoglobin in twelve weeks.”
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Stressing the importance of donating, he added: “Blood donation only takes an hour for any new blood donor over the age of 18 years and each blood unit given can save three lives.”
Patrick, who has been donating blood for 51 years, said he would continue to keep donating blood as there “is no upper age limit” for donation.
He added: “Each day there are over 5,000 new whole red blood units required in England to be blood banked by the NHS to save human life and every single unit is equally important when given by a common blood donor such as myself or a rare group donor. Ethnic blood donors are required to build up precious blood stores.”
During his time as Higham Hill Liberal Democrat councillor between 2006 and 2010, Patrick donated at every mobile blood donor centre in Waltham Forest including at Waltham Forest Town Hall. He has never missed a scheduled blood donation appointment.
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