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Red Cross leaves local volunteers bleeding

The Member for Gippsland East, Craig Ingram, has condemned the actions by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service following its decision to close the Bairnsdale blood bank.

By Craig Ingram - 18th January 2005 - Back to News

"In a letter dated December 8 and in telephone discussions with me at the time, the operations unit manager, Stephen Shanahan, indicated that the Red Cross had plans to improve the blood collection services to Bairnsdale.

"This followed representation by me in October calling for the Red Cross to expand its operations at Bairnsdale to cater for the overwhelming number of local donors who wanted to give blood.

"In total contradiction, the Red Cross announced on Monday that it intends to close Bairnsdale, replacing the regular one night per week collection with a mobile service further restricting access to donors.

"This means that over 1700 willing available blood donations will not be able to be collected in Bairnsdale, which is unacceptable.

"In a time when blood products are often in extremely short supply and demand is often in excess of storage, it seems an extremely negative and short sighted action to abandon one of its more regular blood banks.

"At a time when most organisations are encouraging greater participation of volunteers, the Red Cross has shown a blatant contempt to its hard working committed volunteers in dismissing them with out even saying thank you for their years of service.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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