Meeting of the Parliament 12 January 2022
I thank Fulton MacGregor for securing the debate. For many years, I was an orthopaedic registrar. I operated on a lot of people, fixing their broken bones. I will tell members about one of my patients. I was fixing their hip, something that I had done many times, which was normally quite straightforward. However, no surgery is without its risks. Halfway through, I realised that I could not see anything, because my visor was covered in blood. When I took it off, I realised that I still could not see anything, because the wound was covered in blood. My patient was bleeding quite profusely. We eventually got it under control and finished the operation, and my patient got the blood that they needed via transfusion. They survived, had a new hip and were absolutely fine. Now imagine if we did not have that blood donated by a kind citizen.
Eight years ago, I was so excited to see my son get born that we went to hospital bouncing—well, I did, at least; my wife could not bounce at the time. Things went wrong. My wife suffered a massive bleed. I was left holding my son, surrounded by a room covered in so much of my wife’s blood that it made my previous story look like it was not a patch on it. Luckily, my wife survived. She was given blood and she is absolutely fine, but imagine if we did not have that blood donated by a kind citizen.
Anyone who drives, walks, cycles or plays in the snow never knows whether they will be the person who needs a blood transfusion. Numbers of donors have plummeted during Covid, as expected, but I urge everyone to think about all those people who have accidents, surgery or cancer and all who need blood transfusions. They might be your loved ones, relatives and friends. Part of being a citizen is to help our fellows. Donating blood is easy. It involves a simple and small—I promise that it is small—needle in the arm, and a cup of tea and a biscuit. That was the case pre-Covid and I am hearing that it is currently the case, which is wonderful. Most importantly—