On Saturdays, December 4th and 18th at 12:30, Renzo Barbera Stadium will host a special stand for blood donation, coordinated by the Blood Donators Association Fratres – Palermo ODV, and by Dr. Pietro Giannopolo. Thanks to the initiative “Who has rosanero blood?”, the people who want to participate in one of the two dates will receive a free ticket for the home match of Palermo in the day after the donation, against Monopoli (December 5th) or Bari (December 19th).
The objective of the initiative is to promote the donation of blood and blood products (plasma, platelet, red blood cells) and good practices related to a healthy lifestyle and solidarity towards people with difficulties. A very simple gesture, which can allow blood donors to save human lives, with an appointment which takes just a couple of minutes, and with the benefit of keeping their own health under control.
“Even with the daily efforts from our volunteers to inform the population about the importance of donations, we are not able to diminish the chronical lack of blood which Cervello Hospital has, which today has a deficit of around 7000 blood and blood product donations”, states the director of Fratres Palermo, Dr. Pietro Giannopolo, who puts emphasis in the crucial importance in the education towards blood and blood product donation: “It’s not only a gesture of generosity and altruism, but it’s the easiest way to help patients waiting for a blood transfusion to deal with their condition in the best way possible. Patients with blood conditions or waiting for a transplant at the Cervello Hospital must wait for days before getting a transfusion, and surgeries must be commonly postponed because there are no blood packs available to deal with the procedure. Everything is shown daily at the Cervello Hospital, and the blood emergency is present for the entire year”.
To donate all you need is to be a healthy person, between the ages of 18 and 65, with a body weight over 50 kg. The people who are regular blood donors or have donated blood at least once in the last 2 years, can show up directly to the Barbera stands in the corresponding days, showing the exams of the last donation.
The person who has never donated, instead, has to take a pre-donation exam which consists in an interview and a small blood sample, in the days before the donation at the Fratres Palermo site at the Cervello Hospital: after about three days the results will be communicated, which will consent the participation to the initiative at the stadium.
For the donating day of December 4th, it’s possible to do the pre-donation procedure at Cervello Hospital until the 30th of November, thus obtaining the green light on time for the donation. The pre-donation procedure for the donation of December 18th takes place until December 14th.
At the Fratres site at Cervello Hospital it is possible to donate or do the pre-donation from Monday to Saturday, from 8 until 12:30, and booking a date by calling the numbers 345/4176083 – 392/9240662 – 091/7510685, or by sending an email to gruppofratrespalermo@gmail.com.