Palika Kholi and Katie Ferguson
Student Health Education Centre
Every year Canadian Blood Services comes to McMaster University to set up mobile blood donor clinics. And if you heard the buzz last week, they're back!
Canadian Blood Services is a national, not-for-profit charitable organization that manages the supply of blood and blood products in all provinces and territories outside of Quebec. Canadian Blood Services operates more than 20,000 donor clinics annually, including clinics on campus at the McMaster University Student Centre (3rd Floor, CIBC Hall) and Ewart Angus Centre. At these clinics, units of "whole blood" are collected, which consist of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma. One unit of blood is approximately half a litre (or one pint). Transfusions to patients in need sometimes consist of whole blood (with the white blood cells removed) and other times the blood is centrifuged and separated into its different components.
Approximately every minute of every day, someone in Canada needs blood and it is students like YOU who can make the difference and save lives.
If you’re interested in donating, visit www.blood.ca where you can view basic eligibility requirements. After you’ve checked your eligibility, you can book your appointment at the Student Health Education Centre (SHEC: MUSC Room 202), online (https://donatenow.blood.ca) or by calling 1-888-2-DONATE.
In 2010, to demonstrate support of blood donation and to help recruit students to become new donors, the McMaster Students Union (MSU) joined the Canadian Blood Services Partners for Life program and exceeded the donation pledge of 450 units of blood! The MSU continues to strive to encourage new and repeat donors and has pledged 1,500 units to be donated by the end of 2013.
To ensure your donations count towards the MSU pledge, register as a member of the McMaster Students Union:
Your Partner ID is MCMA011297.
See below for a list of upcoming clinics dates in CIBC Hall, on the third floor of MUSC. Bring a friend to donate and your two units of blood can help treat one patient for internal bleeding!
Thursday, Sept. 26 from 11 AM - 5 PM
Tuesday, Oct. 8th from 11 AM - 5 PM
Thursday, Oct. 24th from 11 AM - 5 PM
Tuesday, Nov. 5th from 11 AM - 5 PM
Thursday, Nov. 21st from 11 AM - 5 PM
Donate with your friends, classmates, residence floor or club! To book your group appointment, contact katie.ferguson@blood.ca.
Kacper Niburski
Assistant News Editor
On Jan. 8, the SRA voted to send the “End the Ban” motion, a national campaign to end the lifetime blood ban on gay men, to the Operations Committee for further review.
Initially spearheaded by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), of which the MSU is not a member, the “End the Ban” campaign seeks to abolish the Canadian Blood Services’ ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with other men, citing that gay men were at a high rate of infection.
As a precautionary measure, the ban was instituted in 1985 during the height of the AIDS epidemic when knowledge and technology in viral detection were not as sensitive as modern techniques.
Although slight grumbles of inequality and discrimination surfaced among fringe humanitarian groups, the 1985 lifetime ban was generally accepted by all, including those in the gay community.
But with time came medical advancements and a breadth of knowledge. Current analytical techniques can detect HIV within a blood donor, public awareness regarding the perils of the immunodeficiency syndrome have expanded, and ‘high-risk’ lifestyles have been minimized with the widespread use of condoms. In fact, the American Red Cross has gone so far to say “the risk of not getting a blood transfusion when it’s needed is infinitely greater than the risk of infection from receiving one.”
After a presentation by Riaz Sayani-Mulji, Operations Commissioner for the SRA, which highlighted these facts, the SRA devolved into debate regarding the support of the ban where both for and against were represented.
Opposition swelled in the Assembly as some of the representatives questioned the merits of the ban itself.
They believed that any endorsement was premature in its inception. The topic of a lifetime blood ban was much more complex than the discrimination policy suggests. Without an actual plan that is detailed and involves all appropriate parties, including the Canadian Blood Services and the MSU, a ban on blood services at McMaster will be entirely fruitless. Rather than prove anything or further a cause, it may simply result in more harm.
Others argued that if the student representatives do not endorse the ban, then they are necessarily acquiescent to a policy that perpetuates discrimination. In a way, the proponents of the ban implicitly suggested that a lack of support by the SRA marginalizes a minority of their constituency.
Simon Granat, Social Science representative, supported such a view, writing an opinion in the Silhouette and saying “if you don’t stand up against discrimination – even if you’re apathetic – you let hate continue.”
Yet such opposing reasons pale into comparison to the greatest precursor of debate: politics. As the MSU is not a member of the CFS, many of its members are participants of other advocacy groups such as the Ontario Undergraduate Student Association (OUSA) which is in turn a sister group of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA). The two, CFS and CASA, are diametrically opposed. While they both are champions of student welfare, the way they go about enacting their demands is entirely different. The CFS has been commonly characterized as a leftist, radical group, while CASA is portrayed more moderate in nature.
“Certain members of the Assembly do not seem to want to endorse or participate in this movement because of the CFS connection,” Sayani-Mulji
All of these issues together have resulted in a standstill within the SRA. The motion has not been endorsed, and now the Operations Committee is faced with trying to house the ban within the MSU, a task that will certainly be met with opposition.
Whether the opposition or support is merited or not remains to be seen. Currently, much of the public awareness has been led by outreach groups such as Occupy McMaster and the School of Social work. On the other hand, the SRA’s debate sired a discussion centralized on a differences of opinions as opposed to anything else.
The SRA plans to meet Jan. 22 to discuss consequent motions.
