“Save A Life” – June News Update
In February 2013, several volunteers got together to find a way to help the North Cyprus health service in relation to emergency reque
sts for blood. Their efforts emerged as the “Save A Life” campaign, and secured sponsorship from both Creditwest Bank and Telsim. The scheme has also been approved by the TRNC Ministry for Health.
The idea is for blood donors who wish to help in an emergency do so by SMS (text). They send their blood group, and nearest hospital to 05428 800 112. Any information sent is completely confidential and no names are given until the donor comes forward to the hospital requesting supplies. The idea behind this scheme is to donate blood only in the event of an emergency. This is where, for whatever reason, the hospital supplies cannot cope.
From February through to March 40 people had signed up to help. Following the launch at 
the TRNC Ministry for Health there are now over 100 donors on the database – from all of the 8 blood groups. To date we have had 7 requests for blood, of which 6 were completed successfully. In the early days we did not have any AB blood group donors, so could not help in that case. We now have donors for these groups, but would welcome more from all blood groups.
The system operates from one of the 3 Blood Transfusion Centres in: Lefkosa, Famagusta, or Girne. They request blood of a certain type, and we send out the text message to those in our database.
To mark June 14th which is World Blood Day, Telsim will begin to send out text messages requesting others to consider donating blood 
in an emergency, to help “Save A Life”. If you would like to help us, then when you receive the text, reply to 05428 800 112 stating your blood type, and nearest hospital. That’s all you have to do. If you would like to donate, but don’t know your blood group, pop along to one of the BRS blood donor days, or contact one of the hospitals and give blood there. You can then text the Save A Life number 05428 800 112, with your blood group, and nearest hospital. You will be added to the growing number of volunteer donors within the Save A Life project.
Don’t forget that those who would like to donate on a regular basis, and not just in an emergency, can still join up via the BRS who will keep you informed of the dates and locations of their blood donor days OR pop along to one of the 3 main hospitals and they will be happy to see you!
Thank You
Save A Life team
savealife.trnc@hotmail.com
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