Please register for the ATEK National Blood Bank. You will receive monthly reminders to donate blood regularly and how to do so in your area. In the case that someone needs your blood type, we will email everyone on file nationally with your blood type. We are requesting the first person to respond to make that emergency donation. This seems to happen twice a year.
Had I paid closer attention to a post and call to action on Roboseyo last month I would have learned about it sooner.
Ladies and gentlemen, Korea is an increasingly multicultural country, and it's ludicrous that non-Koreans are running into so freaking many roadblocks just to donate blood, especially when we have many of the blood types that are uncommon in Korea. You'd think that Korean hospitals would be opening their doors and donation chairs to welcome our rare, exotic bloods, and instead we're getting the runaround, "Korean Only" signs and occasional bullshit explanations that "Oh, you can't mix foreign blood with Korean blood. Didn't you know that?" (anecdotally, that's been told to SEVERAL of my contacts when they tried to donate).
This registrar is particularly helpful development for expats in South Korea with blood types especially rare among Asians, and is an important tool for staying connected in future blood drives. As Roboseyo has mentioned several times, there are restrictions in place on who is permitted to donate, most notably regarding travel or residence abroad and sexual activity. Please refer to the Donation Interview and Restricted Countries documents for more specific information, and to the Facebook group "Blood Connections: Giving and Receiving in Korea" for potential updates.
9 comments:
Great news.
I was just at the Hawaii Blood Bank yesterday and talking about the very problem of having an increased demand for rarer blood types (i.e., those not common among full-blooded ethnic Koreans), while different issues with the relatively transient and non-Korean-speaking population mean the supply hasn't increased to match.
Through no real fault of their own, English teachers and other "temporary" foreign residents are more likely to be users than donors. It's good to see ATEK doing something about it.
Not really anything ATEK can do about "temporary" teachers, since most foreign English teachers are here on one-year contracts and spend time during or between contracts abroad. But this is an important organizational tool---and one that didn't exist before---to collect people who are likely to be eligible.
No doubt Koreans of rarer blood types will follow this with interest, too.
Well ATEK can't do anything about "temporary" teachers being on just one- or two-year stints, but they can do something about getting those short-termers into the Blood Banks, which it appears they're doing.
Lack of information (that it's possible to do, that it's needed, where to go) is the biggest obstacle. This looks like ATEK is taking a big step toward resolving that.
Hawaii, I was told, has a very low blood donation rate for a number of factors, most notably that the population is relatively transient. Language barriers also play a factor, as does body size (you must be at least 110 pounds [50 kg] to donate the standard pint of blood, whereas Japan and other countries allow smaller people to donate smaller amounts).
I knew it. ATEK is run by vampires.
kushibo, what I meant was that most of those temporary teachers wouldn't be eligible to donate anyway because they're not in Korea for one full year (taking a trip to China or Thailand in February or going back home over the summer). But, it's a positive development for connecting with people who are eligible.
Thanks for posting this information. I've been interested in donating, but I had a hard time finding what the restrictions are. Plus, I never tried since I thought I wouldn't be eligible. But it looks like I am! Thanks again!
'Registrar' or 'register'?
Yeah, I noticed that, but I didn't design their page.
It'd be "registrar" if it's meant to be one primary person doing it, but most likely they meant "registry."
Brian wrote:
kushibo, what I meant was that most of those temporary teachers wouldn't be eligible to donate anyway because they're not in Korea for one full year (taking a trip to China or Thailand in February or going back home over the summer). But, it's a positive development for connecting with people who are eligible.
Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about the one-year in-country requirement, even though I myself was subjected to that when I came to Hawaii. Because of Seoul's proximity to North Korea, where malaria is a problem, I was ineligible to donate blood for the first two years I was in Hawaii (because of living in Seoul and then a lengthy "visit" to Seoul the following summer).
Actually, the ATEK registry, I believe, gets it wrong. They wrote...
Expats here under one year are unable to donate blood. Please use date format mm/dd/yyyy (put "life" for Korean)
... and that seems to suggest the believe ROK nationals are not subject to the one-year in-country rule, which I doubt. If they lived in another country for a prolonged period, it would seem the health reasons for those rules (keeping blood-borne old or as yet undiscovered problems compartmentalized as much as possible) apply to SoKos as well.
I could be wrong, but I would be very surprised if a ROK national who goes to give blood is not asked about having resided abroad or having visited or lived in certain countries (due to Mad Cow, people who lived in England — don't remember if it's ever or just before a certain year — are ineligible and something similar may exist in South Korea).
I don't have an unusual blood type in Korea, and I was of the understanding that there was a lot of blood donation from military personnel, so I (perhaps ignorantly or foolishly) never saw the need to donate. I wish I had now, so that I could compare the procedure with Hawaii.
BUT there are people with unusual blood types in South Korea, and that means there is a bigger problem at work: By virtue of these restrictions, international residents will have close to normal demand but will under-supply.
If this kind of thing is brought to the attention of the Korean Red Cross, it may be possible to do workarounds (e.g., allow donation but with extra testing for those in country at least six months). The ATEK registry might be enough of a workaround, if it can provide for the rarer blood types when they are needed.
Sorry for going on about this, but this kind of thing is fascinating to me. It's a big puzzle piece in public health.
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