returned to screens tonight (December 21) for a festive edition with a serious message. The long running medical drama highlighted the importance of blood donation.
In a twist for the show real people were featured telling their blood donation stories in between the scripted action, which saw Iain Dean (Michael Stevenson) crash an ambulance as he was carrying a much needed supply of blood back to Holby ED. The heart wrenching stories illustrated just how important it is to give blood.
Amongst the short clips a man named James explained how he had three extra years with his daughter Rachel thanks to blood donations.
“With Rachel, it was a type of blood cancer, AML, acute myeloid leukaemia. When we started chemotherapy, and as her treatment progressed, she would really feel low, so fatigued, and she would be utterly reliant on the generosity of someone else that had made a blood donation – provided her with the transfusion. It literally kept her alive and you just got your daughter back there with you,” he recalled emotionally.
“We didn’t know how long we’d have Rachel for. When we were told that it wasn’t going to be long, Rachel set up her bucket list. There were lots of things she wanted to do. Attending graduation was a very large part of that for her. We were just so proud of this brilliant achievement…but it was bittersweet. She was robbed of the fantastic future that she deserved. Rachel had in excess of 150 transfusions and people’s donations kept her alive, and it enabled the treatment, and it gave us three and a half precious years of her,” he said.
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Casualty’s Christmas special dealt with the serious matter of blood donation (Image: BBC)
Another man named Andrew explained how he was born with haemophilia so had required blood transfusions all his life.
“My parents were very protective of me,” he began. “I had haemophilia, which meant that I was missing a part of the blood which helped it to clot.
I’d have to have injections, and the injections contained the missing clotting factor, factor eight in my case, and that had to be taken from other people’s blood,” he explained.
Sadly for Andrew the treatment at the time exposed him to other illnesses. “During the late 70s and early 1980s because of infected blood problems a huge number of hemophiliacs were exposed to and caught HIV, me being one of them, so I had hepatitis C and HIV by the time I was five,” he revealed.
As pictures of him enjoying life with his family showed on screen he admitted he had, “been through a bit of a journey when it comes to having to learn to trust the blood supply”.
However he acknowledged: “I think the blood supply is much safer these days, and they’ve demonstrated that.”
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The entire Casualty festive special centred around the importance of blood donation (Image: BBC)
A woman named Cheryl recounted her young daughter Bea’s experience after they brought the youngster to the ED. “I didn’t think that I wouldn’t be home for fourteen months. I just thought we’re going to be in and out of a few hours later. I used to say, Beatrix isn’t a patient here – she lives here. This is her home. The biggest worry i had was how long I was going to be in there keeping her entertained.
“It went from normal life to everything just stopped. Life just ended,” she reflected. “That day we quickly found out…the outcomes for Bea will be that she would need a heart transplant. And the other outcome was we’re not bringing her home. I knew when she needed blood…You could see the life draining from this little one. And every time they hooked her up to the blood, she just looked like a different little girl….I used to… just think’ ‘you don’t know that the difference has made me to this little girl’.”
Bea’s father Terry was so affected by the donations that helped his little girl he is now a volunteer blood courier. “Essentially, it’s a taxi service for some extremely valuable cargo. You get a buzz when you get the call and get your kit and off you go. But the reality is, we do it because we’re saving people’s lives.
“I was personally touched by that service. I thought how important blood is to someone that I love. If you think about Bea’s time in hospital, it hits home how vital blood is. She couldn’t have survived without blood and without donated blood.”
On the other end of the spectrum near the end of a the show a “super doner” named Brenda explained what it means to her to know she is possibly saving a life with each donation. “I’ve just done my 50th donation, and I know that I’m really helping an individual and their family, and it’s an immediate impact. I think that’s what you want to do in life. you want to make a difference somewhere, make a donation, get your text message, and just know that you’re a lifesaver.”