I’ll happily give blood, but not in a muzzle

LAST Monday I tried to give a pint of blood, something I do reasonably regularly – though not as often as I should. I was prevented from even entering the Donor Centre by a senior functionary of the English Blood Service, because I declined to wear a muzzle.

Oh, how selfish and pompous of me, to deprive someone in need of my blood, because I wouldn’t don a strip of cloth for a few minutes! Well, I don’t agree. And if you do you can easily nip along to your nearest blood bank and replace the pint I didn’t give with one of your own. But will you really?

It’s precisely because I’m the sort of person who gives blood (fewer than a million in England do so) that I’m also the sort of person who objects to being forced to wear futile garments by bossy bureaucrats.

There’s no good evidence that these muzzles stop transmission of Covid. And I view them as a badge of submission to a series of stupid and damaging Government policies which I oppose and despise. To don one of these things would be compelled speech, like being forced to wear a badge saying ‘I LOVE BORIS’, when I don’t.

But it’s worse than that. The enforced wearing of face-nappies by donors – which even the Government does not require – may actually be making the process less safe in England. The blood services of all three of the other nations in the UK ask donors to remove masks during donation. This is because, as Welsh Blood puts it: ‘Wearing a face covering will hide the signs that indicate to staff that a donor is about to faint and possibly injure themselves. It is essential that our staff can see donors’ faces so they can intervene at the earliest opportunity if a donor is about to faint.’

The services in Scotland and Northern Ireland confirmed to me that they take the same view. But the English service, the NHSBT, refuses to discuss it, taking a Dalek-like view that you will jolly well obey. I think they have forgotten that donors are volunteers.