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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-22 Daily Xml
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Lifeblood Modbury

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (15:18): I thought I would take today as an opportunity to talk about something really positive in my community. That is of course the work of some really wonderful volunteers and also staff at Lifeblood Modbury. I am sure I am not alone in this chamber when I say very proudly that I am a blood donor. I know I have a very proud blood donor sitting next to me here on the bench. Over the last year, I have had the really wonderful privilege of getting to know some of the Lifeblood Modbury staff, as I became a first-time blood donor last year in 2023.

I was first invited by Natalie to celebrate Lifeblood Modbury being the first donor centre in South Australia to open on Sundays, which commenced last year. We know, of course, that for a lot of people, particularly working people or people with young families, one of the barriers against volunteering is not having the ability to access opportunities to volunteer because of work, school and sporting commitments during the week.

So it was a really exciting milestone for Lifeblood at Modbury to open on Sundays so that working people and people with families would have greater opportunities to come in and give blood. I gave my first blood donation on that Sunday, and I am really excited now to know that that has been a real success for Lifeblood Modbury and, of course, for Lifeblood across the state, noting that there is another centre now open on Sundays as well.

Natalie is the Group Account Manager at Lifeblood, and she is an absolute powerhouse. She is a bundle of energy, and she has done an incredible job of recruiting new donors across Lifeblood sites. At the time Natalie first reached out to me, she gave me some really impressive stats from my community, the electorate of Newland. As at June last year, there were 840 Newland electors who were active blood donors, and the Modbury donor centre was placed second out of five sites in terms of donor centres in SA for donors per population.

Most impressively of all, and this was very much what I think encouraged and inspired me to become one of those donors in the electorate of Newland, is that our electorate saved over 8,000 lives in the 12 months prior to going in and becoming a blood donor myself. Not long after, our community again continued to impress, with the City of Tea Tree Gully coming first in the statewide local government blood drive, which featured not just councils but government departments from across the state.

I thought I would mention today the second time that I gave blood, which was a very exciting day. It was the plasma day at Modbury Lifeblood, and everybody was dressed in yellow. There were yellow decorations everywhere, yellow tutus, and it was all very exciting. On that day, I got to chat with two very special people. One was someone I knew already, Liv—Liv the first, as I have called her; I, of course, am Liv the second—and a new person I had not met before whose name was Kate.

Kate is an author, a podcast host and a mum. One of Kate's children is a beautiful little girl called Marleigh, and Marleigh has an autoimmune disease that means she will rely on blood donations for life. Kate is a huge advocate for blood donation and uses her podcast and her book to tell the story of those who have needed blood. She is not even from Adelaide: she had flown there specifically to talk to individuals about blood donation.

I met her when I was in the donation chair. There, she told me the story of her daughter and thanked me for donating that day, and I speak for so many others about the power of that story, literally sitting there hooked up onto the needles and hearing a story about how a little girl was saved by the power of blood donation. It felt incredibly special to be part of that journey and the journey, of course, of so many others.

I was also joined that day by Liv Trembath. Liv is a local and was doing something very similar, talking about her journey as a plasma recipient whilst donors sat in their chairs. Liv has a primary immune disease and relies on human donor plasma, and she has been a fierce advocate in and around our community for the work of Lifeblood and the recruitment of volunteer donors. Thanks to Liv's hard work, a few weeks ago we celebrated the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood Community Round at the Golden Grove Dodgers baseball club. This was a wonderful day, with players and myself sporting some high, bright yellow socks in support of Liv's plasma journey and Natalie joining us as well, hosting a stall in the heat to recruit new donors and spread much-needed awareness.

Today, I want to thank a number of people: Baseball SA, Lifeblood Modbury, the Golden Grove Dodgers, Natalie Lane, Liv Trembath, Kate Fisher and, of course, both the donors and staff who make up Modbury Lifeblood. It is the most warm, inclusive environment, which has you signing up as a return donor before you have even given on a particular day, so a big shout-out to all of those at Modbury Lifeblood.

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