ITB Fair 2010: Saving Lives through Blood Donation
BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - As one of the students activities aimed to contribute to the society, ITB Fair 2010 has blood donation as a part of the event. The program, held for two days (6-7 February 2010), took place in Labtek V Benny Subianto building terrace, ITB. The event, which was convened by the Indonesian Red Cross, turned out to attract a huge number of the locals intent in saving others' lives. Potential donors willing to donate their blood could directly go to the location of the blood donation. Potential donors would have to fulfill certain criterions in order to participate; they have to be between 17 to 60 years old, healthy, have eaten or had breakfast and have rested well for at least 5 hours in the day before. Beside those criterions, donors cannot be people with heart diseases or in drug usage. Female donors cannot be in the middle of their period.
After passing the above criterions, donors could directly fill in medical forms. From those data, it could be determined whether the basic criterions are met. "If they (medical data) are not, then the potential donors would not be able to donate their blood yet," said Deasty Dini Imara (SITH '09) as the event advisory board.
The registration process was then continued with blood pressure and body weight checking. According to the doctor in duty, to be able to donate blood, someone can only have a minimum of 100/60 blood pressure and a maximum of 160/100. "Outside of that limit, there is a risk of a shock happening in the body," he explained. Aside from that, donors' body weight would have to be checked also. Only donors whose weights are above 46 kilograms were allowed to proceed to the next step. If the checking is done, the donor would then be examined for the amount of hemoglobin inside the blood as well as the blood type. The required hemoglobin amount would be above 12.5.A potential donor would then be able to donate if all the criterions are met. The donor would then be laid on a provided bed, then as much as 350 cc of blood would be taken out by the medical personnel. After that, donors were strongly suggested to rest for around 15 minutes. Light snacks and vitamins were given to the donors in order to recover body condition.
High Enthusiasm
Even with the list of complex prerequisites and the pain inflicted upon them, it seems that donors weren't at all deterred to donate their blood in the event. In the donation, it is not just the students that are participating but also general society. Donors looked very enthusiastic to donate their blood. There were even a number of teenage donors willing to donate their blood.
Blood acquired through this program would then be channeled through the Indonesian Red Cross to the people which are in need of the blood. ITB Fair 2010 helped facilitating the Red Cross in aiding those unable to get access to blood. "I hope that this program would aid those that need the blood," Dini said.
[Christanto]
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