It is now 10:50 a.m. on September 9. In front of Palaceside Building’s west entrance a donation bus is taking blood.
According to the Tokyo Red Cross Blood Center, recent heavy rains have cut donations not only in damaged areas but even where disaster did not strike, and blood is short nationwide.
In recent years transfusion medicine — chemotherapy, bone-marrow transplants — has advanced strikingly, while donors have fallen with a shrinking, aging population, so shortage was already chronic; bad weather has piled on, and the Red Cross looks desperate. Reception today, the 9th, runs to 4 p.m. The goal is 80 people. If you are in the building or nearby, please help.
Donation used to be 200 ml; now the principle is 400 ml. Even the same A or O type differs slightly from person to person, so the more donors a transfusion draws from, the higher the chance of side effects (fever, rash). Using blood from as few people as possible is preferred. For 1,600 ml, eight 200 ml units are needed, but four 400 ml units — half the side-effect odds, they calculate.
Reception is at a desk to the left inside the west entrance. Note the break from 11:00 to 12:15. The draw itself is about ten minutes; with the doctor’s interview the whole thing takes 30–40 minutes.