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Blood sell
• I HAVE learnt that the blood donor service is under threat.
It has been proposed to contract the national network of local blood donor centres into three “supercentres”, in Bristol, Manchester and Colindale. Any driver familiar with these areas knows just how bad the roads can be. Such a plan is dangerous and could lead to deaths at accident sites and in hospitals.
Like plans for polyclinics and the introduction of private businesses into all levels of the NHS, this scheme appears to prepare the way for large-scale privatisation.
Patients needing rare or specially focused blood products will be most at risk and important samples will have to be out of safe-storage in laboratories for longer. The expansion of blood analysis for complicated medical conditions has been one of the great success stories of modern medicine. Let us protect this valuable life-saving service.
A PATTON
Spencer Drive, NW5
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