Help save a life by donating blood to the Mass General Blood Donor Center, one of the largest full-service blood transfusion and donation services in the country.
Donating blood is an easy, quick, safe way to save a life. Mass General is one of the largest users of blood in the country, and the need for blood is constant. Every day, hundreds of patients require blood to help fight cancer, to replace what is lost in a trauma or to treat a chronic disease.
Through the 60 years of medical and technical advances at Mass General’s Blood Donor Center, the one constant has been the need for blood donors. Nothing has replaced the need for generous individuals to roll up their sleeve and donate blood for patients in need.
Today the Blood Donor Center provides the approximately 75,000 blood components necessary annually to transfuse patients at Mass General and other nearby medical facilities. In addition to serving the patient population at Mass General, we also provide blood and blood components to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Shriners Burns Institute for Children and the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. Blood is supplied by volunteer donors – people who realize the ongoing need for life-saving blood.
Some highlights from the 60+ year history of the Blood Donor Center at Mass General include:
1942
Mass General Blood Bank opens; it supplies blood and plasma for patients who were injured in the Cocoanut Grove Nightclub fire.
1945
The Blood Bank holds air raid defense blood drives to collect and freeze plasma for troops in World War II.
1956
The Blood Bank helps to establish a nationwide reference laboratory network to solve blood incompatibility problems and to establish a national rare donor file.
1963
Mass General physician Dr. Charles Huggins invents the cytoglomerator, which allows the first practical method of freezing large quantities of blood.
1976
Mass General’s first Bloodmobile is purchased, and 15 to 20 percent of the blood collected comes from the bloodmobile.
1978
Platelet aphaeresis collection begins.
1992
The Blood Donor Center performs more than 300,000 tests on donors and patients in order to transfuse more than 60,000 blood components.
1998
Bloodmobile collections surpass inhouse donor center collections for the first time.
2001
Blood donors respond to the September 11th attacks, Mass General gains self-sufficiency in blood services for the first time in its history.
2002
The Blood Donor Center celebrates its 60th anniversary.
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