The Northern Territory's emergency workers are rolling up their sleeves and playing their part in a nationwide campaign to boost supplies of blood and plasma. The push for more donors comes ahead of an expansion of eligibility to allow donations from the LGBTI plus community. The Red Cross says it is working to make blood and plasma donation more inclusive and accessible to as many people as possible, whilst maintaining the safety of the blood supply.
00:00Whether it's your first or your 50th time, the Red Cross needs more donors.
00:07This is my 52nd donation.
00:11How often do you donate blood then?
00:14Not enough.
00:15We actually rely on just 3% of the population to maintain the blood supply for the entire country.
00:21A lot of people think that they're not eligible when they probably are.
00:24We estimate around 14 million people would be able to give blood and they just don't.
00:29The demand well understood by those on the front line.
00:33So people who've been involved for example in road trauma who need blood on the scene.
00:39We can take it out to the scene and give it there and then and in that case it is life saving.
00:44For regular donors it's often personal.
00:47My mother when I was born required a blood transfusion and if it wasn't for that blood transfusion she would not be here.
00:56For the next three months frontline emergency workers will take part in the drive with the Red Cross hoping for 100,000 new donors to improve on last year's tally of 14,000 across the country.
01:08The NT police from new recruits to the top brass doing their bit.
01:13Huge range of colleagues here today.
01:14I've even got police recruits from the college donating blood right through to ourselves in senior executive roles.
01:20From next month for the first time gay and bisexual men will be able to donate plasma on the day with lifeblood anticipating an extra 95,000 extra plasma donations a year.
01:31Blood donation eligibility is also changing to allow most people in a sexual relationship of six months or more with a single person to donate blood regardless of gender or sexuality.
