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100!

Date Published: 7 August 2017

Around 70 litres. Enough to fill a commercial fridge of 2 litre milk containers. And that’s how much Plasma or Blood Rupert Gough, head of local Mortgage Advice company The Mortgage Lab, has given throughout his life.

Today, Rupert gave his 100th donation in Epsom.

Rupert has a rare blood type, B-. Around 1.5% of the population has that type which is why he started donating. But, after a while, the donation centre requested that he gave Plasma instead. It turns out that people with rare blood types are very good at donating but only need it… well, in this case… 1.5% of the time. It’s actually the people with common blood types that need to give most often.

Donating Plasma takes around an hour and, apart from 1 or 2 seconds, is completely painless. “That means I’ve sat in a chair for over 100 hours”, Rupert says. “Over 4 straight days in a recliner chair. It’s mind-blowing. These day’s I’m usually just firing off some early morning emails but in the oldie days (pre-iPhone) it was reading the newspaper or a magazine.”

Because the red blood cells are returned to the body, Plasma donations can be given every 2 weeks.

“I was a broke student, living in Wellington and couldn’t afford to give money to charities. So I decided to go down to the donation centre in Newtown and donate blood instead.
These days, I try to book several months in advance so I don’t forget but there’s usually 5 or 6 times a year when I have to cancel due to a cold or work. The app they have is brilliant.”

The Mortgage Lab has a link to the NZ Blood Service but Rupert is careful when promoting the service. “In my previous business, I tried to incentivise my staff to donate by giving them the afternoon off after a donation.  But you can’t give them too much or people will donate when they’re not supposed to, like if they’ve been sick.  It’s a fine line between helping and pushing them to lie on their donation form.”

“These days, I just check-in on Facebook every second or third donation to remind others who can donate that it’s an option. It really isn’t as bad as you’d imagine.”

For his 100th donation, Rupert received a limited edition print and a certificate… and the usual 3 chocolate biscuits.

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