Wood Lane Islamic Centre Stanmore Opens Doors to Give Blood
London – November 07, 2017: Regular and new blood donors alike from Stanmore, will join people from across North London and surrounding areas on Sunday 12 November to give blood for the first ever donation session at the Husaini Islamic Centre on Wood Lane. It is important to donate during November to ensure hospitals have the stocks they need to treat patients over the festive period in December.
The blood donation day is being hosted by the Islamic Unity Society’s (IUS) Imam Hussain Blood Donation Campaign (IHBDC) – the largest Muslim led initiative of its kind in the UK, now into its 12th year in partnership with NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT).
Akil Kanani of the Husaini Islamic Centre said: “This is a very important day for us, we’ve been working hard with the NHS Blood and Transplant assessment team for more than one year to get the centre ready. Now we’re excited to be a fully-fledged blood donation host venue, and look forward to opening our doors regularly to the selfless people that are saving lives through blood donation.”
Open to everyone, organisers are hoping to attract more young donors and people from South Asian, Arab and black communities. An NHS spokesperson said: “In England, we need just under 200,000 new donors to attend a session to give blood this year and there is a particular need to attract people from minority ethnic communities. People from the same ethnic background are more likely to be a match but there is a shortage of donors from minority communities. By hosting blood donation days in mosques and Islamic centres, we believe that this can encourage people to step forward and save lives.”
While people from all communities and backgrounds do give blood, fewer than 5% of blood donors who gave blood in the last year were from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. This is despite black, Asian and minority ethnic communities representing around 14% of the population.
With people from South Asian, Arab and black communities more likely to have rare blood types and conditions like Thalassaemia or sickle cell disease, the requirement for regular blood transfusions from similar ethnic backgrounds is crucial to ensuring the best match and best possible long term outcome for the recipient.
Mustafa Khan, IHBDC Coordinator added: “Our regular donation sessions at the Islamic Centre of England in Maida Vale are hugely popular with Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and we are assessing the Al Zahra Centre in Watford as another potential host venue, so the footprint is expanding.”
In 2016 alone, the IHBDC encouraged a total of 720 individual blood donations across 25 UK cities which was the equivalent of saving or improving the lives of up to 2,160 adults or 5,040 infants.
To find out more and book an appointment visit ius.org.uk/giveblood/sign-up/or www.blood.co.uk call 0300 123 23 23. Donors should be fit and healthy, weigh over 7 stone 12 lbs (50kg) and aged between 17 and 66 (up to 70 if you have given blood before).
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For more information, images or to arrange an interview, please contact Razi Hassan at Imam Hussain Blood Donation Campaign on 07941 577343.
For more information on the Imam Hussain Blood Donation Campaign, visit www.ius.org.uk/giveblood
Notes for Editors
- The Imam Hussain (A.S) Blood Donation Campaign was started in 2006 by young Muslims in Manchester.
- It is now the biggest nationwide campaign in the UK which aims to increase the number of blood donors from Muslim communities.
- The campaign is part of the Islamic Unity Society (IUS) Community projects, focusing on providing innovative ways of integrating Muslim communities within the wider British society.
- The Islamic Unity Society (IUS) is an independent registered charity set up in 1995, run solely by volunteer students and young professionals.
- NHS Blood and Transplant is a joint England and Wales Special Health Authority. We are responsible for ensuring a safe and efficient supply of blood and associated services to the NHS in England. We are also the organ donation organisation for the UK and are responsible for matching and allocating donated organs.
- NHS Blood and Transplant needs to collect 1.5 million units of blood each year to meet the needs of patients across England. It’s important that we collect the right amount of each blood group at the right time to meet patient needs.
- Some blood groups, such as O negative (the universal blood group), A negative and B negative are particularly vulnerable to shortfalls. So we want people with those blood groups to donate as regularly as they can. We also need more black African, black Caribbean, mixed race and South Asian people to become blood donors to reflect the ethnic diversity of patients.
- Follow on:
▪ Twitter: @ImamHussainBDC
▪ Facebook: www.facebook.com/IHBDC
▪ Instagram: @ImamHussainBDC
▪ Youtube: www.youtube.com/imamhussainbdc; www.youtube.com/user/NHSGiveBlood”
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