VISITING THE BLOOD BANK, GIVING YOUR BEST TREASURE

Donating blood in the Hospital Clínic, Barcelona

Today, The Grandma has gone to the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona to donate blood. It is true that she is very old to do it but she has a young spirit and enough force and blood to share with other. Donating blood is one of the best things you can do. It is free, fast and necessary.

The Grandma wants to talk about one of the most interesting institutions, el Banc de Sang i Teixits, a blood bank that works for our health and lives.

The Banc de Sang i Teixits is a public company of the Health Department of the Generalitat de Catalunya, committed to supplying and guaranteeing the good use of blood and human tissues donations to Catalonia.

The center has the mission of collecting blood donations, umbilical cord, maternal and bone marrow, and distribute them in various hospital centers in the Catalan territory.

The Banc de Sang i Teixits is also promoting biological diagnostic studies, such as the GCAT Genomes per a la Vida project, aimed at facilitating the prediction and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular malignancies and cancer, among other pathologies.

The institution consists of a division dedicated to the development of advanced terraces, XCELIA, where it  is worked in the development of drugs based on cell therapies or tissue engineering aimed at the treatment of traumatological, hematological and immune diseases.

The Banc de Sang i Teixits is one of the seven Catalan companies that has obtained the Seal of European Excellence 500+, a certification of excellence of the management model given by the European Foundation for Quality in Management.

More information: Banc de Sang i Teixits

A blood bank is a center where blood gathered as a result of blood donation is stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusion. The term "blood bank" typically refers to a division of a hospital where the storage of blood product occurs and where proper testing is performed to reduce the risk of transfusion related adverse events. However, it sometimes refers to a collection center, and indeed some hospitals also perform collection.

The world's first blood donor service was established in 1921 by the secretary of the British Red Cross, Percy Oliver.

Volunteers were subjected to a series of physical tests to establish their blood group. The London Blood Transfusion Service was free of charge and expanded rapidly.

Donating blood, a must

By 1925, it was providing services for almost 500 patients and it was incorporated into the structure of the British Red Cross in 1926.

Similar systems were established in other cities including Sheffield, Manchester and Norwich, and the service's work began to attract international attention. Similar services were established in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Australia and Japan.

Blood is a body fluid in humans and other animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells.

In vertebrates, it is composed of blood cells suspended in blood plasma. Plasma, which constitutes 55% of blood fluid, is mostly water (92% by volume), and contains proteins, glucose, mineral ions, hormones, carbon dioxide (plasma being the main medium for excretory product transportation), and blood cells themselves.

Albumin is the main protein in plasma, and it functions to regulate the colloidal osmotic pressure of blood.

The blood cells are mainly red blood cells also called RBCs or erythrocytes, white blood cells also called WBCs or leukocytes and platelets also called thrombocytes.

The most abundant cells in vertebrate blood are red blood cells. These contain hemoglobin, an iron-containing protein, which facilitates oxygen transport by reversibly binding to this respiratory gas and greatly increasing its solubility in blood. In contrast, carbon dioxide is mostly transported extracellularly as bicarbonate ion transported in plasma.

More information: The New Yorker

Vertebrate blood is bright red when its hemoglobin is oxygenated and dark red when it is deoxygenated.

Some animals, such as crustaceans and mollusks, use hemocyanin to carry oxygen, instead of hemoglobin. Insects and some mollusks use a fluid called hemolymph instead of blood, the difference being that hemolymph is not contained in a closed circulatory system. In most insects, this blood does not contain oxygen-carrying molecules such as hemoglobin because their bodies are small enough for their tracheal system to suffice for supplying oxygen.

Jawed vertebrates have an adaptive immune system, based largely on white blood cells. White blood cells help to resist infections and parasites. Platelets are important in the clotting of blood. Arthropods, using hemolymph, have hemocytes as part of their immune system.

Blood is circulated around the body through blood vessels by the pumping action of the heart.

In animals with lungs, arterial blood carries oxygen from inhaled air to the tissues of the body, and venous blood carries carbon dioxide, a waste product of metabolism produced by cells, from the tissues to the lungs to be exhaled.

Medical terms related to blood often begin with hemo- or hemato- also spelled haemo- and haemato- from the Greek word αἷμα (haima) for blood. In terms of anatomy and histology, blood is considered a specialized form of connective tissue, given its origin in the bones and the presence of potential molecular fibers in the form of fibrinogen.

More information: Red Cross Blood

I've been involved with blood donation since the 1980s

because there is a critical need.

Donna Reed