Giving the Gift of Life

Lin Ruiban donated his first 200 milliliters of blood 13 years ago. “Just a little courage can save a life,” he thought to himself as he left the hospital following his initial donation. Since then, he has given blood every three to six months at Sanming No.1 Hospital in Fujian Province.

Lin developed his altruistic outlook growing up in a small village in Fujian’s Datian County. Living far from modern cities, the villagers lived an unsophisticated life, sticking by each other in times of hardship. The villagers’ charitable attitude made a big impression on little Lin. “Good deeds will be rewarded in the next world,” his parents always told him.

As well as his blood donating activities, Lin now works for the Red Cross Foundation of Sanming, and founded the “Blood Donating House” website to promote his blood donating activities. In eight years the site has recorded 150,000 hits.

Lin doesn’t just give blood himself however. After several years of donating, in August 1997 he began contacting other donors and a year later organized China’s first blood donors association. Members are divided into four groups according to their blood type, with each group broken down into teams of ten headed by a leader. Teams are closely linked with their local blood bank, and members are contacted if their particular blood type is suddenly needed. Not long ago, Sanming’s type O and AB blood supplies were running short. The association sent text messages to its members and within five days around 400 volunteers stepped forward to give blood.

In 2002, Lin met his future wife – a fellow donor – through one of his friends. A year later they married in a bloodmobile. The event attracted hordes of curious passers-by, many of whom immediately signed up to donate. Even Lin’s 87-year-old grandpa said he would have given if he had been 10 years younger.

Since Lin established China’s first blood donors association, other groups have sprung up around the country. Shanghai’s RH-negative Donor Club, for example, has 277 members and plays a vital role during emergencies in the city of 19 million. RH-negative blood is extremely rare, especially in East Asia, where the number of carriers is as low as three to four per thousand head of population. When combined with the fact that many people are unaware of their blood type, RH-negative blood donors can be exceedingly difficult to find.

The importance of Shanghai’s RH-negative network was demonstrated one night in April 2006, when an Indian patient with RH-negative blood suffered a massive hemorrhage during an operation, requiring an immediate transfusion. The 2,000 milliliters of suitable blood held by the Shanghai blood center were rushed to the hospital, but the supply was not enough. A round of telephone recruitment from the RH-negative club generated donations from 30 people, saving the patient’s life and replenishing the center’s empty reserves.

This is just one example of the countless small emergencies that occur in Chinese hospitals every day that require large amounts of fresh blood. Thousands of patients every year owe their lives to donors like Lin, who through their regular blood donations give others the gift of life.