As the Australian Red Cross Blood Service’s RED25 Emergency Service Blood Challenge 2019 enters its final month of donations, Phil Greenbank is choosing to lead by example.
Phil Greenbank, firefighter from Creswick Fire Brigade, has been donating for more than 38 years, and has contributed to our ranks this year again.
He has donated blood, plasma, platelets and bone marrow – and his donations have directly assisted 32 patients in hospital being treated for cancer (including one for bone marrow and 22 for platelets).
“I’ve been donating with CFA for about 20 years in various challenges, and as part of the RED25 Challenge since it started in 2015,” Phil said.
“It’s estimated that I’ve had 7,716 people receive my blood, plasma and platelet products since I started donating.”
Last year on 23 October, Phil reached his five-hundredth donation milestone, a feat recognised at the 2019 National Blood Donor Week celebrations. As of today, Phil has donated 514 times- and he expects this will only continue to rise.
Phil reached his 500th donation last October, and is now up to 514.
Over the three months of this year’s RED25 Challenge, Phil will visit his local donor centre six to seven times to contribute to the challenge.
“If it helps to get more CFA members or their families donating, more lives can be saved,” Phil said. “Whether you donate once or one hundred times, every donation helps.”
Last year, CFA people made 918 donations, and they’re on track to do it again in 2019, currently at 674.
This includes 269 whole blood, 387 plasma and 18 platelet donation – equating to approximately 2022 lives saved over the past two months.
As it stands currently, the Challenge rankings are following a similar trend to 2018. The top five: Victoria Police, NSW Police Force, CFA, QLD Police Service and SAPOL are in the same position now, as they were when the tally finished last year.
