Mega-donor encourages others to donate blood and plasma
Jurys began donating blood back in Manchester, England, when she was 15.
“It was so different then,” she said. “You laid down on a really uncomfortable bed and they collected the blood in a glass bottle. When they were done, they would stretch your arm up and put it over your head. It was really uncomfortable. Why would anybody go back?”
Yet she did.
After the blood donation clinic on Dilworth closed, last July Jurys switched to donating plasma at the Orchard Park shopping centre clinic. She comes out every other week and spends about an hour and a quarter donating plasma.
She is hoping her 200th donation will inspire others to make an appointment to donate.
Jurys said it doesn’t hurt at all.
“They take the blood and it goes through like a centrifuge, separates the blood and then they give you your blood cells back,” she said. “It’s like nothing has happened.”
For Jurys, donating plasma is important because it saves lives.
The donated plasma is converted into medications.
“It takes months to go through the process from collection to finished medication, so that need is constant,” said Janna Pantella, business development manager at Canadian Blood Services at
Orchard Park Shopping Centre.
Some people will need plasma protein products once as they recover from an isolated incident. Other people, such as people who have immune diseases might need that treatment every two weeks or every month for the rest of their lives.
Canadian Blood Services issued an immediate need notice last Friday.
“We need more people to book those appointments and just donate,” said Pantella.
Summer months are usually slow, but Pantella said they have been seeing cancellations and a drop in appointment bookings as people are out enjoying the Okanagan and falling out of their donation routine.
“We’re still seeing an impact from the pandemic, where we actually reached the lowest donor bas that we’ve seen in a decade,” Pantella added.
Plasma donation takes about 90 minutes from start to finish. Donors kick back in comfortable chairs and can read a book or watch a show in the air conditioning. There are also snacks.
The Orchard Park location in Kelowna is for plasma donations only and is one of five of its kind in Canada. Pantella noted the overall process of donating plasma is similar to that of blood.
For more information or to book an appointment go online to Blood.ca, call 1888-2donate or download the Give Blood app.