Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the show. I'm Justin. As usual, you can reach us at thehonestdrink at gmail.com and Instagram, but you can also reach us now on WeChat. We just set up an Honest Drink WeChat account and group chat, so feel free to join us on there. Details are in the description below, and don't be afraid to start a conversation. That's what it's there for. All right.
Today, we're going to talk about saving lives. I mean, literally saving lives. And the incredible thing about this is we can all do it. You don't have to be a superhero. You just simply donate blood. No matter where you go, there's always a need for blood donation. This is how accident victims, women bleeding from birth complications, cancer patients, sick children, the list goes on and on. This is how they all get the blood they need or they die. It's truly life or death.
not to mention disaster relief. So when there's a big accident or let's say natural disaster like an earthquake that critically injures a lot of people at once, where do you think the blood comes from that saves them? It comes from blood donations. It comes from people like you, from people like me. So today I talked to the founder of Bloodline.
He's a surgeon at Shanghai United Family Hospital, and we're also joined by two of its 10 Corps members. Bloodline is a charity organization that has built a large network of volunteer blood donors who are all on standby to save people. They organize regular community blood drives as well and targeted blood donation camps.
During the height of the COVID outbreak, for example, this community at Bloodline was the first to jump into action and donate blood. If you know someone or have a loved one that is in urgent need of blood, these are the people you reach out to.
In today's episode, we get into a great conversation where we clear up a lot of the misunderstanding and fear some people have around donating blood and why it's so important and how it's actually healthy for your body to donate. Also, the great thing about donating blood is you get all these tests for free. You get a whole slew of information about your vitals, your health, your blood. Normally, you would have to pay a hospital for, but you get these reports for free each time you donate. It's
It's fast, it's easy, clean, and safe, and you get to save a life. I mean, come on. There's no downside, no excuses. Their next blood drive will be on Halloween, October 31st at the Shanghai Blood Center between 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Come dress in your Halloween costumes and save a life or two. Now, without further ado, please welcome Dr. Maske, Svetlana, and Xavier.
Good morning, guys. Good morning. This is the first morning podcast I've ever done. Yeah.
Yeah, first morning one. Because usually in the afternoon we've got to drink, right? Oh, that's why you have so many bottles. That's what you drank last night. But we shouldn't be drinking today. You have surgery later, Dr. Maskey. Yes, I do. You actually have surgery. What kind of surgery are you doing later? We're going to be removing an implant and also releasing some tendons from the wrist. So let me ask you.
Is surgery or is being a surgeon anything like, you know, the TV shows like Grey's Anatomy, all these hospital TV shows? Is it anything like that? Or is that just completely just a whole nother world? I wish. Well, if I had to sort of go back into my life and make decisions again, would I still be a surgeon? Yes. Okay. Probably I'll go into something that
is less demanding in terms of time, you know, because I think as being a surgeon or a doctor for that matter, you sort of always feel that you have this responsibility to your patients. So you then tend to give your contact details to the patients and, you know,
the minute they reach out to you, you feel this almost like a moral obligation that I have to reply. That sometimes ends up with you having to reply back texts at 11 in the night. And sometimes it goes a little crazy. Yeah, I'm sure. I've had a mom ask me something like 11.30 in the night, can my daughter have ice cream? And I'm like,
Seriously, like even on a healthy day for her, she shouldn't be having ice cream at 11:30 in the night. So yeah, it's good. It's a good feeling, but at the same time, one of the problems I think is you really cannot predict your time. - Well, how do you balance that though? Like how do you balance that feeling of having this responsibility to your patients versus having your own personal space and time? How do you juggle that?
Where do you draw the line? Sometimes it gets very difficult. I'll be very frank with you. Sometimes I come back home and then there's this five-year-old who wants to play with you and you try to give her enough time. Then, of course, we have this bloodline that we do all voluntarily and it goes a little out of whack occasionally, right? I always joke with my team members. It's like, hey, I had four hours of sleep last night. I had five last night and so on. But then at the end of the day, you...
I think what really drives me along is that feeling of satisfaction, that food for soul. On one hand, in your daily work, you're saving lives. And on your off time, through Bloodline, you're still saving lives. And at the end of the day, if you've spent so much time and sometimes even taken a little bit away from your personal time, perhaps you dedicate to your family.
But if you know and then that you have perhaps doing that saved a life or two, I think that's what really counts. Well, is that why you got into this whole field in the beginning? Was that drive always there to help people and save lives? Or was that something that kind of evolved during your work? Being a surgeon, you mean? Yeah, or just a doctor in general, going into the health field at all. So...
Going back to many years ago, right? When I was four or five. And I look back and think of my dad, and I think it was pretty stupid he did this. But he was a physician. I originally come from Nepal. So his Nepal Medical Council number was 21. He was the 21st doctor in Nepal. So when he used to go and see his patients, he would take me along. And as a five-year-old boy...
taking this young child to a clinic with patients with infected chests and so on i don't i don't see how wise that was but anyway i'd sit in the side of the you know the room on a corner somewhere and just watch him check his patients out and then uh one thing i realized was for for some patients he would like uh charge them obviously like but for some patients he would
No, no money, right? In fact, then he would go down to the medical store, get some medications, you know, and give it to the patients all for free. And I would sit down there thinking like, what makes him make that differentiation between these patients? So later on, I got to find out that he was actually judging these patients, their economic status.
buy their sort of like the undergarments they wear. If it was like held together with a little safety pin or a little hole in his undergarments, then he would assume this person is not too well off. And he would check these patients for free. And in fact, send them back home with money. And in Nepal, you have a lot of that, right? So I was like, wow, this is something. He's making a little difference in his own way. And then my parents sent me to a Catholic school, an old-time jihad school with harsh punishments, all boys punished.
I saw my first girl, except for my mom, after when I was in the age of 13, right? Very nervous. What was that like? I fell off my bike and broke my tooth. I'm not kidding. Really? Really, I'm not kidding. You're not exaggerating? That's not a joke? I'm not. When you saw your first girl, you fell off your bike and broke your tooth? The school I went to was an all-boys school. So from the age of 6 to 12, it was an all-boys boarding school. Strict discipline, you know?
And it's all the Jesuits, all male Jesuits, you know, and I really look back to those days and I am very thankful. So no female staff there? No female staff. Not during the time you're in school. Okay.
So after the age of 13, then you sort of come out of this boarding school and they mix you with another school, which is a day scholar. Then from 13 to like the school living certificate exams, you're mixed in this day scholar school. So you go to school. And so right next door to our school was an all girls school. So I was in St. Javier's. The other school was known as St. Mary's. All these girls would be, you know, on the side of the road waiting for the buses and
And when I was 13 years old, I would actually cycle to school. The first few days, oh my God, it's like, girls, what are these things, you know? Okay. And then I remember, I very distinctly remember on one of these, the first bus stop of theirs, I was cycling past.
Got so nervous, I just went heads up over the bicycle, you know, and landed on my chin and broke a tooth. A piece of my teeth, you can still see it there. Wow. You know, so, yeah, it was... You were, like, trying to look cool riding by. Exactly, you know. And then that was, like, the ultimate humiliation. But one thing that school taught me was social service. So from a very early age, they would divide these students into groups of five, right?
And they'd just send you to a village and say, okay, today you're going to go and help this family. Your team is going to go and help this family, right? So that's what we did. And then brought a little bit of like an understanding of what social service was. Well, it sounds like that's just ingrained into the culture at Nepal. Is that very much a cultural thing there? It is. People helping other people. Exactly. And then growing up in the more high school community,
Then we formed a little group of social action volunteers and went and helped in a pediatric hospital. And back in Nepal, you have to understand there's a lot of poor people, no money for food, medications, can't even arrange blood. So that's what we did. We stayed in this playroom for the kids. And we were given gray coats, unlike the white coats that the doctors wear. And we used to feel like doctors with gray coats instead, you know.
And then we would sort of look at the finances of anyone that came for help. And we just helped them with medications, acquiring money for their food, for their children's treatment and so on. And then later on as an intern, and this will surprise you, you know, we almost worked like Robin Hood. So what we did was...
Back home, every government hospital has like a free bed in every ward. So these are given to patients who have pretty much no money, right? But then how do you have them get their medications, expensive antibiotics, fluids, stuff for surgeries? So I see Mr. A, who's very rich, and I would prescribe a few more antibiotics, a few more stuff for surgery and so on. Once Mr. A was wheeled into the operating rules...
Some of his stuff would go missing, meaning we would remove it and put it into a poor fund. And then when Mr. B, who has absolutely nothing in his pocket, had needed surgery, we'd take these things out and give surgery for this. So there were patients who were getting surgeries for pretty much nothing, absolutely free. Wow. And that's almost, we used to feel like Robin Hood, right? Yeah. But looking back, would I do it again? Absolutely, you know.
Well, like speaking of Robin Hood, um, in, in the spirit of that, um,
You know, you guys have started Bloodline, right? And I want to, for the listeners that don't know, we are joined, well, you know from the introduction, but we're joined by three guests today. So obviously, Dr. Maske, Svetlana, hello, and Xavier. Hi. Hi, guys. How are you doing? So Svetlana, you're a fitness instructor, is that correct? Yes, I am. And Xavier, what do you do? I do business development for Tmall Partner. Okay. And you were also a former patient of Dr. Maske, was that correct? I had an ankle injury and a...
- You put it in there, yeah. - Okay, so yeah, I learned about this bloodline thing that you guys are doing through you, Dr. Maskey, when I went to see you. I was a patient of yours before and we got to talking, right? And you had told me about this bloodline. I was really fascinated about it. And I'm thinking, you know, I don't really see a lot of blood donation in China, but maybe that's just me. Maybe that's just the circle I'm in. I'm just ignorant to it. Maybe there is a lot.
But it just doesn't really seem to be a huge part of the culture. When I was growing up in the States, in high school, there would be blood donation trucks that would come by and, you know, the students would come out and we'd donate blood. It was just like a very normal thing. So I kind of want to dive into that a little bit. But first, maybe we can understand what you guys do with Bloodline and how it got started.
Any one of you can jump in. Okay, I can tell you. My story with the blood donation is quite simple. I've been underweight for most of the time of my life. And I've never been allowed till last year to donate blood. Because in Russia, we have regulations. Actually, China put the same regulation, 50 kilos donation.
of the body weight, and I've been always under that. - So if you're under 50 kilos, you cannot donate blood. - You cannot donate blood. - So that's, those are the rules here in China, in Russia. Is that like a global standard? - Yeah. - That's a global standard? - In China it was 45 before actually. That's why I did my first donation in 2019. And I was super happy about that because I got refused. I tried to donate blood since I was 18, but every time,
came in, they're like, no, no, I tried to wear more clothes. I tried to put things in my pockets. You didn't get away with it? No, they did ask me to take everything off and stuff. But yeah, I have a kind of a thyroid issues. And that's why my metabolism is quite high metabolism rate. And I do not
Like I cannot really gain much weight, honestly speaking. Lucky you. Yeah, I was about to say, I think most people are really jealous of your condition. Honestly speaking, it's not as good as you think it is for a female.
Why is that? I would think females would love to not be able to. No, because it's the opposite process. There is the medium range, right? And from fitness point of view and health point of view, you have to be in this medium because if you're lower than that or higher than that, it affects your regeneration process. So it's all about the female things and the...
Birth giving and... Fertility. Yes, yes, yes. It's all about that. So it's not as...
Cool as you think it is. And hormones issues, of course. That was male privilege right there. Yeah, male privilege. For male, you can, okay, be jealous. For girls, I wouldn't suggest to be jealous of that. So now I actually joined the challenge for muscle gain so I can gain a little bit of mass before my next blood donation, which is going to be 31st of October on the Halloween event of Bloodline.
So, yeah, and I'm looking forward on everyday eating. So how did they come up with the standard of 50 kg? If you're below 50 kg, you can't donate blood. Why is that? It's a BMI because I think you're losing a certain amount of blood, and you need to be able to regenerate it fast, so recovery. So otherwise you...
might feel not very well, you know? - So you said that's based off of the BMI, body mass index? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Is body max index, let me ask you something, is that an outdated measurement? Because that was started like in the 1800s, right? And people, there's some debate going on, I don't know, but there's some debate going on because body mass index is strictly your height to weight ratio, right? It's strictly that.
Would a more accurate thing be measuring your actual fat percentage? Now, they are actually fitness industry going into that point. And that is actual, the reality of each person. But hospitals still use body mass index, right? When I get my physical, it's BMI. That's the question. We still use BMI. Yeah. We are old fashioned. The fitness groups are, I think, more, you know. So BMI is kind of like an outdated thing a little bit? Uh,
I wouldn't say that. It doesn't tell the whole story. It's partly, I think it's actually a combination of everything because you can be quite short as well and, you know, very light and it's going to be normal. You know, BMI will be still okay and your body fat percentage will be still okay. You know, like it's a combination of both because, for example, in the fitness industry, they're having these machines now and, for example, for challenges now, we're considering only
muscle gain and body fat loss. We're not thinking about other things, honestly speaking, and there is a specific range for both.
which indicates you are normal, you're healthy, or strength of your body as well. So if you're below that, it's still like everything out of balance. That's my personal opinion in everything. Also with food, even if it's healthy, everything out of balance, it's not going to bring you benefits. It has to be really controlled.
Yeah. Okay, so this bloodline thing, how did it get started? Well, my first donation, right, was back in Nepal. A poor patient wanted blood. We were young kids at the time, just past the age of being allowed to give blood. So I stepped up, donated blood, cycled back home, hid the blood donation card under my bed so that my parents wouldn't know.
I was actually afraid because I hadn't asked them. And everything was, mom, can I do this? Mom, can I do that? Mom, you know. Three months later, she was cleaning up my room and she's like, she found this card and she summoned me over and she's like, did you donate some blood? I'm like, oh, yes. And then even to this day, after multiple times I've donated blood,
The minute she knows it, she calls me and goes, did you donate blood again? I'm like, yes, mom. Even now? Even now. But she's happy I do it now. But how would she know if you donated blood now? Posts. And then that was my first experience with blood donation. Coming to China, and I used to donate blood after that, but coming to China, it was a little bit of a challenge because I really didn't know if it was safe or not. So I just finished a surgery. This is like 2011-ish.
in Shanghai United Family Hospital. I came out and I saw there was a blood camp going on. So I just walked into this place where they were, you know, and I sat down and donated my blood. I was like, oh, looks pretty safe. Looks clean and they were very well organized, the staff from the Shanghai Blood Center. And then I saw all these media people gathering around and taking pictures and interviewing. I'm like,
why are they focusing on me and i realized later on that i was the first person to have walked into that place i didn't know at that time because i just came out of surgery and walked in right so they like couldn't believe someone did it right so uh that's how i first made the people from shanghai blood center and they're like hey wonderful for doing this would you like to volunteer
to our volunteers group and occasionally donate blood. I'm like, absolutely. Now that I've done my first thing, I think this is going to be safe, right? So then I started working with Blood Center and we used to go out and trying to just public awareness, right? Trying to create public awareness. It would sometimes even mean getting a little bored and having, trying people to put some signatures on this board in the middle of, let's say, People's Square or
And this is like 2013, 14. And believe it or not, even to sign that on that poster, people would turn and run. That is how scared they were of blood donations, right? So my journey with blood donation and trying to get more people involved continued all along. But I think the turning point for Bloodline or the formation of Bloodline rather was this French girl,
a very young girl who had visited Shanghai to visit her boyfriend. And I think she was caught up in a scooter accident, you know. So bombed her abdomen. She was taken to a hospital, local hospital. They sent her back. Next day, she wasn't feeling good. Came back to our hospital and at that time was serving general surgery. So we realized she had lacerated her liver and she was bleeding.
And unfortunately, she was O negative, a very rare blood type in China. So you have to understand in China, the negative blood type. So you have AB, O and AB types, right? Then you have the recess positive or negative. So the recess negative in the Han population is very rare. It's like three in a thousand people.
That's how rare it is. Three in a thousand for negative blood types in like the Han population. So three people in every thousand Chinese population is negative. The rest are all positive. So therefore, you occasionally hear about these shortages of negative blood. So same with her. And I was like, okay, we're going to need to go in and do the surgery. And she's bleeding, so she will probably need help.
So I sent out to this team of friends I'd created at the time saying, we're going to need O negative blood. Can anyone help? I went in to help in surgery. During the whole time that the surgery was being done, I got over 80 calls to a point I had to designate a nursing staff to just respond to those calls. They were all willing to help, right? O negative. Hey, I'm O negative. Where can I come over? Where can I donate? Right.
So then I thought, this world is actually wonderful. There's a lot of people actually wanting to help each other. Why not create Bloodline, right? I know we're already working through the Shanghai Blood Centre as a volunteer team, but we can have independent sort of entity, right, to help each other. And then I started reaching out to some of my present team members in Bloodline, and they had all created smaller groups, like, for instance, Rassel,
She's Canadian. She had almost, you know, during her first two pregnancies, it was very dangerous for her. She bled so much and she was O negative. So she had created a little group. And on her third pregnancy, we were all prepared because bloodline was there, right? So we started creating this association of like-minded individuals and later on to companies, people, and we said, let's form bloodline. Let's make this happen.
So that was the birth of bloodline. Well, that's beautiful. And I think what you guys do and the rest of your team members with bloodline, I think it's obviously it's a very normal cause. But, you know, why? Number one, I have to ask you this because you brought it up. Why is negative blood type so rare among Chinese people? I think it's such a genetics of it. Anyway, all over the world, it is not as common as positive types. But more so in China. So if you are...
a negative blood type and you're a regular blood donor, you're somewhat like a miniature version of a superhero here. So they call it the panda blood type, cheng mao sui, right, in Chinese. So because pandas are rare, that's how they label it. So in fact, even in the local Chinese community, there are several groups
associations of negative blood types where they're supporting each other. Oh, wow. Especially, as you know, O-negatives can only receive from O-negatives, right? They're universal donors, whereas AB-negatives are universal acceptors, right? So that's why we have, even in bloodline, we have designated groups of O-negative people. We just put them together, and they are the support for each other.
As I speak, in Shanghai, we have almost 180 O-negatives in a group. So every time one of them is going to give birth or is caught up in an accident or, you know, there's 179 others that's going to support them. And the list keeps on growing. Can I get tested for my blood type? Because this is going to be embarrassing to say. I actually forgot my blood type. Uh-uh.
Yeah, I forgot what I am. You could. Yeah, so there's a way to test it. Do I have to test it before I donate blood or do I donate and they just test what I donate and then they find out? So the perfect reason to go and donate blood is of all the other health benefits, right? One of the benefits is you get all these tests for free.
So as you know before, you get your vitals checked. It's almost like a free physical. Yeah. You get your vitals checked. You get your blood pressure, your pulse rate. And then you get this. Hepatitis B and C. Oh. Yeah. Everything. AIDS, HIV. And then you get your basic metabolic panel. Wow, I didn't know that. They give you all that information? Very fast. Is it the same day they give you that report? When you arrive? They take it the same day, but they'll send you a report after...
a few days. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Okay. Oh, that's awesome. And your blood type. Yeah. Yeah. I've always been embarrassed to say I actually forgot. I used to know it when I was a kid, but I forgot it because I actually, you know, I haven't donated blood in a very long time. But for people who are like me that are kind of ignorant to this,
Why is donating blood so important? And who are you helping? Like, who are the people being helped? And why is it so important? So I'm going to pass this question to a very young, dynamic French man I met in some of our blood drives. And I was just looking at this guy standing around donating and donating and donating and just being happy.
and helping everyone, helping the events. I'm like, I need this guy in my core team. So here you go, Xavier. All right. Why donating is important? It's very easy. It's because...
Everyone actually, everyone needs blood at some point. If you have an accident, if you give birth, everyone can need blood at any moment. So the first reason is to help others. It's very easy. And for you as a donor, you feel better, very happy. You are doing something for others. So you have a very good feeling for yourself, for your own body, for your own mind.
And for the others, you're going to help them, you're going to maybe save a life. Certainly, like each time you give blood, when you give the maximum blood, you can have like up to one, two, three people. Really into the quantity of blood they need. So it's very easy to give. You go to the Shanghai blood center, I mean we are in Shanghai or any blood center, and you go, you don't know your blood, it's okay. They're going to check, they're going to see,
if you have any problem or not, you have the result few days later. After giving, they give you a card with your blood. So the day you go, there it is, you have all the information in it.
So when you donate blood, do they take that blood and store it in the blood bank or something like that? Is that what it is? Yeah, yeah. And then the blood that's stored in the blood bank is used for people, you know, whether they're emergency situations, crisis, you know, like there's a big accident somewhere and people need blood, emergency response, things like that? Yeah. Exactly.
So is it for public use or do people use it for private use as well when the blood gets to the blood bank? Okay. So there's a few things you have to know in terms of the regulations, right? In the past, in a lot of countries, what used to happen was there used to be what we call a replacement blood donation. So that means my family, my brother, my dad needs blood. I'd go to the blood center and say, my dad needs blood. I want to give blood, right? Then you'd give it to...
give the blood and then that would be taken for as a replacement to someone in a family they're trying to move away from that that process because now even who right and the chinese government as well and a lot of governments all around the world take it that this is the government's responsibility to provide blood for whoever is in need of blood depending on the priority right so i
go to the blood center and I say, I want to donate blood to Shanghai. Right? So I donate blood. And then this blood will be used for anyone in Shanghai. So it's more of a mass pool. Okay? So that's the focus. And in a way, that's good because that's trying to steer the whole process away from the black market that existed in the past. Okay? So that's very important in a way that
now use a squinty. That's why bloodline in a way is very important because all the blood drives we do, all our members donating blood,
is purely for communal use. It's voluntary. It's voluntary and it's for the community. We don't say this goes to who, this goes to who. Of course, sometimes there are rare blood types or families that do not have support and we can request that these bloods are directed to those particular people. You can prioritize depending on the situation, right? Yes. How badly they need it. Exactly. Exactly.
And for the all negative, you can ask more people to go donating at this occasion. As you collect more and we have, this person will be up as well. How long does the blood sit there usually? Does the blood expire in the blood bank? Is there an expiration date? It does. So it has to be, so it's constantly... The life of a red blood cell, the whole blood, is around 35 to 42 days. Once it gets extracted. Yes. And the life of a platelet...
That's a portion of the blood. So that's a slightly different process where you donate blood, it goes into a machine, it takes away the blood clotting component, platelets, right? And returns everything back to the body. So that only has a half-life of five days. So you can imagine the inflow and the outflow of blood that is actually required for a big city like Shanghai.
So what Bloodline, the concept now we're trying to focus on is, Bloodline is just basically united, uniting individuals, companies, people who support the cause. And we have, I was checking yesterday, over 100 partners now, right? All we do is unite people and we create a huge pool of virtual blood banks.
Because there's no way we can be an actual blood bank. It needs a lot of time, money, resources, you know, physical space. But we are a virtual blood bank. And when the time is needed, when there's a requirement, we convert that virtual blood bank into a physical blood bank. So we provide to Shanghai Blood Centre or to the other banks and then convert that into a physical blood bank.
availability of blood. So the virtual blood bank is basically just your whole community of volunteer members on standby, basically. Exactly. And when the time comes, you know, there's a need, they're there and they donate blood right away. Exactly. So Bloodline has three major functions. So one is community blood drives. We do that several times a year and we try to make it fun.
So Svetlana can tell you about one of the community blood drives, what her experience is, and maybe even Javier, you know. We try to do them with themes, try to put energy into these blood drives. Well, you guys have one coming up, right, on Halloween. Yeah, Halloween is one of the main events, I think, of the year. And that's how I met actually everyone from Bloodline.
Because I've been working with a fitness studio and they're just like, can you train in there just as a volunteer? And I was like, yeah, sure. I love volunteering. Let's do that. So and that's how I met everyone. And I told my story and I was so excited about it because the idea exactly everyone who does not know about blood donation, they are...
slightly afraid maybe they don't understand why they do it why it's important or like they feel oh it's needles that's the one of the most common we just try to make people understand that it's not scary it's
It's actually fun and there are lots of positive energy around these particular events. Lots of people, lots of volunteers. So you see you create a really positive energy around the blood donation itself. So you actually don't feel anything what you thought. So we are technically breaking out the myth of people who does not know anything about it.
So, and yeah, some performance, lots of kids, lots of happy people, companies, organization coming like as a group, kind of a team building style. It's like a party. Yeah, it's like a little party. It's honestly speaking, that's one of the main thing to create a proper understanding of the blood donation because it's not only bringing you joy,
It's not only saving lives because technically you don't know who you're saving, but it's also bringing you happiness as have been said and also safeness. You know if something happens to you or to your loved ones in the future, you know where to go. You know where to ask. You know, oh, it's possible. You don't give up. It gives a little bit of hope.
in those types of situations because a lot of people who don't know, they're like going down. So it's a kind of motivational, like behind the scenes feeling of safeness as well together with the energy, positivity and saving life, of course. - I would also have to believe for people that believe in karma,
you know, it's a very good thing to give blood because it'll come back to you. You know, it's putting out that karma, that positivity out there, and you reap the benefits from it as well. But what do you think, you know, because you guys have brought up the idea of the fear of donating blood, and maybe people have some misunderstandings around it, or some confusion of what exactly it entails and how it works and blah, blah, blah.
In your experiences, why do you think so many people fear donating blood? I mean, besides the needle going into your arm. I mean, like, what is it? Do you think it's a deeper misunderstanding of how that blood's being used or, you know, or they think there are other consequences to it? Like, why do you think people fear it? I think it's a mix of things. The first thing will be, yes, they fear, is it safe to give? Like, do they use the same needle for someone else? No.
I give already three times in China. I give in France many times before. And China is following the last regulation. They're very, very clean, very safe. And for each donor... But people still believe, like people still think they might be reusing the same needle for more... Like I would think that's a given by now to know. Some people see that as this. It's very safe. It's very clean. The nurse are using glove protection. Like for every person, it's a new pocket to collect the blood. Like...
Everything is very well organized, very clean. So it's... Don't be afraid, please. There is no reason. We mentioned the platelets as well. Dr. Maskey gives a lot of blood and a lot of platelets. He's very healthy, if you can see on the video. We are all very healthy. There is no risk...
Part of the excuse roots from, I think, also some cultural beliefs, right? Especially in China, there's this, the ying and the yang and the qi and the warmth and the cold in the body, right? So I think I have sort of stopped trying to convince a 35, 40 plus years old plus gentleman or lady to donate blood. It's just not going to happen, right?
But what I see as a very positive thing is now a lot of younger people, right, coming there and sitting in the blood center. And you can see that they've not done this for the first time. They're chatting with each other. They're looking on their mobile phones and the other hand is out there and their blood is flowing out and they're like smiling, chatting away. And it's like, okay, this is the culture we want to achieve. And our focus for Bloodline is also now the young crowd.
Because maybe because of the very deep-rooted cultural beliefs, it's difficult to change the mindset of the more middle-aged and older people. But in 10, 15 years, China, I believe, is going to be really open about blood donations, right? The way it's going now. And what we also try to create is special events.
There's two types of blood donations. One is you go there, you know, you fill up a form, you sit there, someone sticks a needle into your arm, you donate some blood, you then stand up, you get a cookie, you have some drinks, and then you say bye, you get a card and you leave. The other type of blood donation is you go in, you start hearing this music, there's drums playing, you go in, there's a bunch of crazy people
dressed up as Halloween zombies or nurses or a vampire or pirates and they're just doing these crazy things. There's children running all around.
There's Svetlana doing her fitness thing. There's Javier with his face painted, right? I'll be there just to see that. Looking forward. And there's Justin in the corner, you know, like singing on his guitar, right? Yeah, we're waiting as well. So you walk in there and then you do the registration process. You have these little Girl Scouts in their zombie costumes, you know, guiding you how to fill up the form. And you go up and then you're like, wow.
The whole area is with stalls and refreshments and pumpkin carving and you know face painting and children are running around the place. You go to donate your blood
You sit there and you probably have, if you have a son or a daughter, she's sitting on your lap and seeing this nurse poke a needle into your arm. And she's like, Dad, great job. You know, her superhero, right? So you're also focusing on this children's mindset, how they perceive a blood drive, right? And then you give your blood, you come out and you socialize, you drink. There's pizzas, there's, you know, cookies, there's, you know,
raffle draws in fact we have raffle draws like tonight uh stay in a executive suite in hotel hilton and so on you know so you give your part so this is the other blood donation drive and this is the sort of environment we try to create so that this person goes home with several benefits a number one he saved a life b he's got a very positive attitude now of blood donation and he can
Talk about this day when he's 80 to his grandchildren, right? And third, his children...
Or his family come around and goes like, I saw my dad donate blood today. That was an awesome thing to do. Right? So this is the difference that we try to create as opposed to a normal blood donation. Well, just like how when you were growing up, you saw your dad helping people. You know, out of his own pocket. Yeah. And yeah, I would think for young kids, like having building an event like that around donating blood, but making it really just a party and a really fun experience. Yeah.
must have such a great impression on a young kid's mind. And they grow up thinking, you know, associating donating blood with this really happy and positive experience instead of anything to fear. Yeah, that's really important. But what was it like before in the early days? You mentioned that there was a whole black market before with donating blood. How did that work? So from what I know, I never had the...
Had to face them directly. But from what I know, if I needed blood, I could just pay some middlemen, right, some money, and they would have donors come in to donate blood. So I don't know how healthy that is and how safe that is. But obviously, the government definitely wants to go away from that. In fact, that's one of our code of conduct for bloodline is we will not honor bloodlines.
any monetary gains in any of our platforms. Because it corrupts the whole thing, right? Exactly. We are a charity. We are a charity. So we have had companies come and tell us, I want to donate $10,000 for your cause. Nope. I want to donate blood for your cause. Absolutely. Or I want to donate like 100 bottles of Coke for your donors to use. Time, resources, blood, but just not money. Exactly. Right. You know, Javier had perhaps just
Were you with the children's event, the hospital event last year? Yeah. So anyway, it's not only Halloween. We do several events throughout the year. For sensibilization, for a lot of things. But Halloween is the one that to me makes the most sense though, right? It's a bloodiest one. Yeah, blood with Halloween. It goes with the theme. Exactly. It fits so naturally in it. And we even have little blood bags filled with drinkable blood.
What's in there, like fruit punch or something? Yeah, fruit punch. And we have little finger sticks, you know, actually finger digits on a little, you know. So, yeah, it's Halloween fun. But for me personally, the most moving event we've done so far was the children with leukemia. So giving for the purpose. Giving for the purpose. We actually select a hospital. So the last one we did was in Putoa Hospital.
you know, Children's Hospital. And then this year we were supposed to have it in Fudan Hospital, Children's Hospital, but then it got canceled because of COVID. So what we did was we had over 100 donors come, donate blood, and it was a very fun-filled event with performance. Like we even had a child with leukemia sing for us and we were exchanging gifts. And then the second half of the program, we went up to the wards with all these children with leukemia. They have a little playroom and those that are sick
healthy enough to come and join. So they came there and we sang songs for them, did little puppet shows. And then we went and visited every child, gave them a little gift. And for us, the symbolic thing was we gave them teddy bears. We actually made teddy bears
We wrote hope on the t-shirt of these teddy bears. And this to us was symbolically the connection between the child and us because that hope for them. And I think the most moving moment for me of everything we've done through Bloodline was this one particular mom at the end of the program coming to us. And she had a baby that was like a few months old and she was given another two, three months of life.
So she came and hugged us all and she said, "Of this very short life of my child, today is perhaps the best day." And we just sat around hugging each other and we were like, we're all tearing up. So that to me was like, this is why we do Bloodline. So there's all the fun part of it, but on the other side, there's also that emotional attachment. So people ask me, "Why Bloodline?" Well, my job as a surgeon feeds me and my family.
But, and I'm sure Svetlana and Xavier would agree, our passion with deadline feeds our soul. And that's purely why we do it. In fact, we have to fish out money from our pockets, right? But with the support now of more sponsors and so on, and so on, it's really going in the right direction. And that's what we believe humanity is all about.
- That's beautiful and that's what you said to me the first day I met you about Bloodline. You were like, we were in the hospital and you were like, this is good, I love what I do, this is an income, but my real passion is over here and you pointed to this sticker or this poster and it was just about Bloodline.
And that's how the whole conversation got started. Yeah. I think that's beautiful, man. Um, and I, I really, I really thank you for all the work you guys do. Um, I'll be there on, uh, October, uh, 31st, right? Well, where is it again? Shanghai blood center from 10 to three in the afternoon from 10 to three at the Shanghai blood center, Hongchou road, one, one, nine, one on Hongchou road. Well, I'll put the exact details in the description as well. I'll be there donating blood for sure. Um,
You mentioned about the kids with leukemia, and this might sound like a really ignorant question to you, but what is it about leukemia that the patients need blood for? Well, we've helped several kids all over, not only in Shanghai, but that comes with therapy, chemotherapy. And while it targets...
the bad cells, it can kill off also some of your blood cells. So there's that need for those. Like replenishment? Replenishment of especially coagulation factors, plasma, and so on. Is that for all chemotherapies, basically? Yes. Okay, because I have a family member who has cancer right now.
So, yeah, so that's why I didn't really understand the whole blood aspect of it. I didn't know about that. So you will be surprised how many people we've helped here. Just a few months ago, we had a patient. I'm not going to, I'm not allowed to tell names. He was diagnosed with leukemia. He needed blood. Sent out the call. We sent out a call. Within a week, we had over 200 people signed up.
And that was like, wow, we don't have this on regular appeals. And this guy himself was a very outgoing, very a person who was always helping everyone, right? To a point where now we're probably going to do an annual blood drive to this effect, right?
But he is why I respect this patient so much was, guys, go and donate blood, but don't donate for me. Donate for the community, you know. So he was constantly telling all his friends, go and donate for the community. And I will get my blood if I'm in the priority list. We have also done a lot of this for like we had to help one child in Tongkwan. This is in Kwansoo.
Right? And the older sisters just couldn't find enough donors. And somehow the rich, you know, found us. And we just spread out the news. And I sent this little kid, one of those teddy bears with meds.
and our bloodline cup that we've made you know he was so happy you know so obviously we're trying to help people all over china wherever there's a need to sort of try to direct our friends our contacts to help those people in those particular areas now um here in china um is there is it reliant um is blood donation really reliant on organizations like yourself like bloodline or is the government
taking control over this or really stepping up to push awareness with this and set up the infrastructure and bring awareness to donating blood? Or is it really kind of more, as of now, more reliant on organizations like Bloodline? - So in China there's voluntary blood donations and there's the other blood donations.
From what I know, if you were to randomly talk to like one of the bigger companies and say-- - But what do you mean, I'm sorry to cut you off, but what do you mean by other blood donations? Aren't all blood donations pretty much volunteer, no? - No. - No? - Some people ask for money still. We still have some people, like they join our group chat where we communicate and they're like, "How much do you give us?" And we're like, "No, you give it for free. "You give it for the people, you give it for yourself." But there's no money involved.
Some of the bigger companies, I'm not going to mention names. So every year they have a sort of like a quota they have to fulfill as in terms of blood donation to the community, right? Volunteered blood donations. In quotes. Okay. But then what the boss will say is...
Okay, you donate blood, I'm going to give you five days of leave and 2,000 RMBs as a bonus. Okay? So this is the direction we're trying to stay away from. It still exists. And perhaps that's the only way they can get it for these companies because it's either they're trying to... Well, if this boss could have the staff come voluntarily and donate, that would be the best thing. We've had a German boss...
who has some staff in Nanjing, some in Suzhou, some in Hanzhou. He got all of them together into the blood bank, had them all donate at the same day, right? Those who were able to. He took them out, dinner. Those who could not return back home, he put them up in a hotel. And to me, this was one of the best bosses I've seen. And the other boss could be, hey, you come and donate blood. I'm just going to give you, you know, some bonus money, right? So I think...
If the quota is not made, I think there's a certain, again, some compensation there. So they'd rather pay their employees to donate blood. So that's where the government, I know, and us, we're really trying to focus on voluntary blood drives. You're doing it purely out of humanity. There's nothing I've asked for in return.
Well, when it comes to compensation and money, I understand with you guys as a charity organization not accepting money. That makes sense to me. And that seems like a really good approach to it, principle to have. But if the ends justify the means, what's wrong with a company that's willing to pay their employees to donate blood? If it gets them to end up donating blood, why is that...
why is that such a negative thing no it's not bad in making a bad thing the thing is as we are trying to do we're trying to develop the awareness the education of these people like do it by yourself you don't need to be waiting for your company to ask you to go i understand so it's more about the reason to do it yeah so actually like earlier you asked like um what is china going on doing so in every city you have blood center in china you're shy blood center in beijing you have blood center we're trying to do this
job of communication, of education, of awareness. But they need as well other people, associations to help them. So it's a global work for me. Like today as well, we are doing it to tell people like, oh, nothing to fear. Like when you give blood, you won't have anything wrong for your body. You'll have good things because you need to regenerate your cells. So giving blood will help your body to push this. It will regenerate you.
And you have good information about hepatitis and everything, your blood type. So we are trying to push people like go for yourself, not because your company is asking you. I guess the way to answer that would be pretty much like this. Let's say I'm asked to go and sing a song for some children with cancer in a hospital, right? And then I take a bunch of my friends. I take Svetlana, I take Xavier. I go there and play our guitar and we sing a song and we're like...
We feel good about this. Thanks for having us and we leave feeling very happy. Or we go there and say, right, we're going to do this for you, but how much are you going to pay us? Right? 500,000. Okay. I gather that money and then I play that song and I leave. I understand for some people that is a necessity, right? Because the world does hover around having to survive.
But I, we in Bloodline sincerely believe, I think the first bunch of people who went there and sang it out of their free will and have left that place feeling very happy, I think they're in the long run going to be the happier people. Yeah. I can see how that can be a slippery slope because once, you know, you kind of,
People put their foot in the door in terms of actually being compensated to donate their blood. It ends up becoming a slippery slope of people gaming the system or taking advantage of the system. And then it kind of corrupts it for sure. Because you know there's going to be people taking advantage of that.
You know what happened recently was another... Speak closer into the mic, yeah. What happened recently was another mind-blowing episode for me. So there was a female in Beijing, needed blood because she was going to have a baby and then she was O negative and they couldn't locate any blood, reached out to us, the husband of Chinese. And from the very beginning, he started offering money and said, we don't accept money. We can help you for free, but we don't accept money, right?
So he was like, okay. And then it went to a point where I was like, okay, if you really want to offer money, you better find someone else. Right? So then, fine. Donation was okay. He was very happy. And he came back saying, I know you guys have this thing to run, right? Your operation costs. I'd still like to donate something. So for me, it was a challenge because I'm like, we don't want to go for the money part if it really undermines our credibility, right? Right.
So then we do have partner charities. We have, for instance, Heart to Heart. We have Operation Smile. They do surgery for poor kids with a cleft palate, cleft lips, right? Heart to Heart is like portuline that need heart surgery. I said, fine. You want to donate? Here. Please meet the so-and-so of Operation Smile. There you go. So we just put them in touch. So therefore...
I felt very happy that through our work, we were indirectly able to give a child with a cleft lip a free surgery. And for those organizations, I mean, they really need the money, right? Because you're talking about like actual free surgery they're giving out. Exactly. And, you know, obviously there's a lot of money involved with that. Okay. So that's how we're helping indirectly as well. So that's why we have a lot of charities in our friends list.
And we plan to advance this further to have more charities join in.
Well, from your knowledge, what's the difference right now between blood donation in China and, let's say, in other parts of the world, let's say the United States, Europe, or wherever? Are there a lot of differences in how it's set up or the culture around it? Or is it all pretty much the same? The basics, I think, is that you've donated in China. You haven't donated in Russia, right? Yeah. Yeah.
The basics, I think, is the same. But I personally feel the duration between blood donations in China is too long. So in China, you're allowed to donate whole blood once every six months.
Whereas in the U.S., it'd be every three months. What do you mean whole blood? Like the red blood. Okay. Not the slitlets, right? Okay. So whole blood means all the components of blood. That's the regular, that's the common blood donation that you see. Okay. Right? So, and Bia, because you mentioned this earlier, so there's another way of donating blood where you're only donating partial blood? Yeah. Part of the components of the blood? Yeah. So...
The first one is what we call the whole blood. You sit there, someone sticks a needle into your arm, the blood comes out, you're done. You get up, press your arm for a few minutes, take a cookie, and then that's it, right? That's whole blood. And in China, the amount of blood you can donate, at least in Shanghai, is either 200 mLs or 400 mLs, which is less than what you would usually do in the U.S.,
Or some of the other parts of the world, like you donate a pint. Yeah. Right? You feel oozy afterwards, right? Not necessarily. No. No. There are secrets. I've learned a lot of secrets to not feel oozy. Oh, you should share these secrets. But anyway, what I'm trying to say in China, anyway, the amount of blood they take is lesser. Okay. The duration between blood donations is longer. So six months. Okay.
If I've been trying to convince Changa Blood Centre and saying, hey, you got to be every three months so that way we can donate more, right? But it's once every six months. But the platelets, the one where they hook you up to a machine, a needle goes in, they take the blood, they extract, they call it a process of apheresis. They extract the platelets and then return the rest of the blood into you. That you can do every two weeks here or in other parts of the world. But on the whole blood aspect, I wish there were more platelets
liberal onto the time and also the restrictions on what who can donate blood I think is more strict here in China. Yeah, what are the requirements to donate blood here? Besides we talked about the weight aspect of it. Yeah. What are the requirements? Age, so 18 to 55. Weight. Weight she already mentioned right and 55 the only exception they would make is if you have been donating till the age of 55 if you've donated in the previous year
You can continue to donate up to the age of 60. So if I donated at the age of 56 and I have a card to prove I donated at the age of 55, and so it goes on every year, then I'm allowed to donate until the age of 60. Otherwise, if I'm not, let's say I did my last donation when I was 50 and I'm now 58, I wanted to donate, then you're just disqualified. So does the quality of the blood deteriorate as you age?
somewhat I would think you know but generally it's still very healthy blood you'd probably hear of in the national news of someone who's like 70 plus has still is still donating blood right so that's one of the restrictions here and I think other things other smaller stuff to like women who are breastfeeding who are pregnant obviously for for logical reasons on some medications if you like antibiotics antibiotics yeah
wisdom tooth removal as well. You need to wait for one or two weeks. Tattoo? Tattoo, yeah. For one year? Is, um...
Okay, this might sound ridiculous. But is blood transfusion therapy, is that a real thing? And before you answer, because I've seen on TV shows, so it could be completely fictional, but they talk about these rich CEOs hooking themselves up at home to young people's bloods, like teenager blood or something like that.
and just sitting there and having that blood kind of course through their system. It's like they believe they'll be younger, they'll stay younger because of that. Is that just the complete fabrication of Hollywood, or is there any real piece of truth with that? To answer that question, I have to go back to another movie. I saw a movie when I was a kid. It was an Indian movie. So three adopted sons, right? Yeah.
And one, and they tried to make it very tasty in the movies. So one of the sons is a Christian, one is a Muslim, one is a Hindu or something like that. And then three different religions. And there's one of the scenes in the movie where the mom is about to die.
And there's three sons. They all come from their little parts of the town and they hook themselves up to the needle. And then they have all their three bloods going into a central container. And then that is hooked up to the mom. There's no cross checks. There's nothing, right? Three people's blood going into this. And the mom gets saved from three children with three different religions, right? So I think that's more of a flavor they're just trying to add to a movie.
I don't know if that really exists, but I don't possibly see how a younger person's blood would really benefit you into becoming younger. Because we at Bloodline have resources to a lot of blood.
Young one, too. So we should be. Hooking yourself up to like a five-year-old's blood or something like that. Well, like it's the idea of like, well, like stem cell therapy is a real thing, right? And that's about like taking younger cells and injecting it into your body and to certain parts and it helps you recover. Technically, yes, but not really. Honestly speaking, it depends on the quality of life.
If the person eats well, exercise and do a healthy lifestyle, no matter which age he is or she is, the blood quality will be good. That's the idea, not exactly the young or older. But blood donation itself, it urges the regeneration process in your body. So you are actually blood donation are quite healthy.
To donate blood is actually a healthy thing for yourself. For yourself, for the donors. Yeah, it's like a vaccination process, right? So how does it work? You put a vaccine, the actual virus, yeah?
And your body fight it and after it's immune to it. The same here, so you take a little bit of blood out of your system, so your body urge the regeneration process and you're becoming stronger. That's a physical process actually, so blood donations are also quite healthy for the donor itself on a regular basis.
I never thought about that. Yeah, that makes sense. Because it kind of boosts your body's recovery. Yes, immune system and immune system itself. Yeah, it's just most important to have a good recovery and be like a little bit more at the first time, giving a little bit of time of rest after the donation itself. So you don't feel any discomfort.
and you create a good positive attitude towards the blood donation itself. Awesome. What would you recommend would be a good frequency for a person to donate blood? Every six months. As often as you can. Really? As often as you can? I would do it. In Russia, it's every three months. Every three months? Can you do it multiple times a month? Is that not advisable? Because I really don't know. Actually, you can give every three months full blood, and you can give platelets every two weeks. Every two weeks.
Okay, platelets every two weeks. Who would be, who is that used for, the platelets? Especially the leukemia cancer patients. Cancer patients. Bleeding disorders, you know. Bleeding disorders, oh, it's the bleeding disorders, the one where they can't, the blood can't clot, right? Exactly. What is that called again? Some sort of, any sort of like hemolytic diseases, right? Okay, okay.
Yeah, you know if you ask how do you feel after you donate blood, right? I think I wish we had Vivek one of our team members, core members to answer that question. Now Vivek donates blood and he goes crazy.
What do you mean? How does he go crazy? That evening, he's so energetic. He's like, come on, guys, let's go out. Let's party. Let's do this. Same for me. Same for you, right? So you get more energy. Yeah. The common thinking is like you get weak and woozy. The first time you just learn your body, how you react, actually. Some patients feel a little dizzy, a little woozy and so on, right? But here's the secret. You want to hydrate yourself really well.
before the blood donation. You want to hydrate yourself really well after the blood donation, right? So people ask me, after the blood donation, how do you feel? I'm like, I just felt like I just went to pee-pee and came back. Right? Nothing there. But then I think that's the main thing. You hydrate yourself really well and you don't feel the difference as much. And in fact, like I told you, Vivek, every time he donates, he goes really hyperactive after that. I think same with you, right? Mm-hmm.
Is that maybe because like your body's so used to it already? So like you said, the health benefits from donating blood, maybe like you're already like at that state. But for a first timer, maybe it might be. Exactly. You need to learn yourself actually every time you exercise because I'm exercising. I'm used to boost my immune system, right? So this is another boosting element to my body, right? So my body already, ah, okay, let's do this.
Let's go for it. Okay, so some people are not, and it's just different, honestly speaking. Recently, I started to think about everything. You just need to learn your way, your own self, and don't put it, oh, I'm not going to do that particular thing, not about blood donation, about exercising, because exercising is also quite challenging to get as a habit.
So we have a lot of mental work to do with people. And it's like, don't create, don't put it on the process.
It's just learn yourself and avoid it, this reaction. If you need to rest more, rest a little bit more next time. If you need to do this particular part, okay, go for it. If you don't feel comfortable mentally to give 400, give 200 at the beginning just to see how it goes. And that's what creates a sustainable, positive attitude and just good feelings, not just like, okay, I donated, I felt dizzy, I don't want to go anymore.
Yeah, and also I think a lot of people who are not experienced as you guys are with donating blood, they over-exaggerate the side effects, I guess, if you want to call them that, in their heads. They feel like, oh, I won't be able to work that day because I'll be just too weak to walk around. That's a complete exaggeration. I've donated blood before, and yeah, I felt fine afterwards too. Yeah, because you see, if something happened, you ate something wrong,
The same day as you donate blood, it's like, oh, I feel bad because I donated blood.
But actually, in reality, maybe you ate something wrong or something different happened, like not absolutely related to the blood donation. But automatically, you'll think and put it together with something new which came into your mind. So that should be avoided because sometimes there are lots of coincidences in your life which are not related. So it's just like, okay, maybe next time I will be more mindful.
That's it. Or maybe it's, let me think through the day. You know, something like that. Because blood donation itself, it's really something which would not affect your day if you do it on a regular basis. Or if you take precautions. Yeah, and if you prepare. Like you say, hydrate yourself, hydrate yourself, sleep well before.
- Don't go and donate. - Sleep well, hydrate yourself, just all the normal things you should be doing anyway. - Exactly. - Don't go and donate blood when you're drunk, you know? - Have you ever had people come intoxicated trying to donate blood? - No, no, but I sometimes think if we were to collect these blood types, this blood, right?
we probably could use them for patients that need surgery without anesthesia. You're scaring me because you're an actual surgeon. No need for anesthesia anymore. That's a surgeon job, okay? You're supposed to laugh. But, you know, before I let you guys go, because I want to make sure no one has any excuses not to donate blood, right? And, you know, given that, you know, obviously COVID-19
Are there any sort of risks with, you know, COVID and donating blood? Is there any overlap there in terms of, you know, because people might fear, people might have irrational fears where they're like, oh, well, you know, COVID's still out there, right? And I don't know if I want to donate blood. It's like, I don't know, right? Just like the same fear like they have of people reusing needles. I donated in April. Actually, we went to give in February on purpose. Yeah. So...
Right in the very height of the COVID situation in Shanghai, right? I know there was a female who had given birth and then started bleeding thereafter. Rare blood type. I read in the articles how the staff at Shanghai Blood Center, they themselves, all the way from the leadership, all the way down, right? Everyone had rolled up their own sleeves to donate blood for this patient.
for Shanghai, because the problem there was there was so much shortage of blood, just people not coming out. Not only in Shanghai, all over the world, the same situation everywhere. Everyone locked down at home, blood banks don't have enough donors and therefore no blood. They were having to cancel elective surgeries. They had no blood supplies even for emergencies.
So when I read this article, I was like really touched. It's like this Shanghai Blood Center was doing a really good job at that time. So I'm like, we could help. And even though it is sort of like a demand on our members to ask them to go out and donate blood at this very scary moment, period of time. Remember those days where you were even afraid to go down to the grocery store and buy stuff? Well, like during the lockdown. Yeah, exactly, right? So asking them to go to the blood center and donate blood
it takes quite something to do, right? And we made that call. And guess what? Over the course of that three, four months, we had over 200 donors present at the Gates of Blood Center, right? Of course, they had their screening processes. They had the temperature check and the green codes and the usual stuff, you know, and social distancing. But then we built a heart. So every time someone donated blood, we made a little hexagon.
These hexagons all added up and we made this. We didn't reveal it initially, but then it finally added up to make a really beautiful heart. And we printed this huge heart out and actually gave it as a gift to Shanghai at the completion of COVID-19.
So that to us was a very big feeling of fulfillment because that was the time where people were really scared. It was a big ask then, right? Yeah. And realized that people are actually even in those moments are pretty, you know, willing to help. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
You did it. He did it. I did it. I did it twice during that time, right? And then I think you were twice, right? We went together. Yeah, we went together. I went before they refused me. I had to wait a little bit.
They refused you because of your weight? No, I think I went for platelets before as well. Remember, we were supposed to go together when something happens. But I broke my toe on my foot, and I think I had too much white cells in my blood. So they actually said I cannot. My immune system is too low. But then you went back and did it again. Yeah, I did it. Yeah, yeah, I did it. I have a donor who is underweight.
And he went to donate. He was what? He was underweight, right? So he went to donate and he was like...
slightly underweight but it's the same as me like a slightly really this this guy really is funny because then he's like dr mask they wouldn't take my blood today it's like okay we'll try next don't come back in two weeks he's like no i'm gonna come back next week i'm like really you're not gonna make it brother and he did he just stood on the scale and he was on the mark exactly you know he said i ate a lot
So from a larger perspective, before we wrap this up, from a larger perspective, how urgent is the whole kind of blood supply, whether we're talking specifically in China or just globally? How urgent is it for people to really jump on board and get on board with this whole idea of donating blood? Is it always a constant, really kind of critical thing?
situation with blood not having enough blood for for people usually yes there is uh so it's pretty critical and urgent pretty critical if you if you uh were to just google shortage of blood during covid there's tons and tons and tons of article you can come across you know it's not only in china everywhere look into any state in the u.s vietnam nepal india anywhere you're going to write
So especially those countries that were hit with COVID-19, it was that much more difficult. And also you have to know for some of those patients that were really, really affected badly to a point where they needed the ECMO, that's an external chest, the breathing machine, right? That needs blood too. And then also later on, they found that people who had donated or who had COVID-19
and their plasma was sort of acting as like almost like a treatment for some of the other severely affected patients. So their blood transfusion was also helping the more critically ill patients to recover. So this whole thing with blood donation, I think there's a constant need, especially in bigger cities like Shanghai, right?
And sometimes it gets worse. Sometimes there are better days. But generally, there's definitely, there's always that need to be getting people like to come and donate. Yeah. It's not like, oh, I think there's enough blood there now. We can all relax. It's almost constant, especially because the blood only lasts for a little over a month. Exactly. Wow. Yeah.
Well, thank you guys for coming on the show and sharing your experiences. I think there are no excuses to donate blood.
especially now. Bloodline, you guys will have your event here October 31st on Halloween at the Shanghai Blood Center on Hong Chao Lu. We'll put the actual address in the description. Do you guys have a link or anything like that? Yeah. You'll send me later? Okay, we'll put that on. Dr. Maskey, Svetlana, Xavier.
Thank you guys. Thank you guys for sharing. Thank you, Justin. You guys should come back on when we can actually drink. Whenever you have some time. I'm serious. I'm serious. Now we got this out of the way and after the blood donation, you know, maybe next month, you guys will come back on. We'll have a proper drink together. Sure. And have more fun. And Justin, thank you so much. So much for having us here. Thank you.
And we will expect to see you on October 31 with your guitar. I don't know about the guitar yet, but I will definitely be there donating blood, which is important. You can practice. You have like two weeks to practice. But thank you guys once again. All right, guys. That's it. I'm Justin. And we'll see you guys. Go donate blood. No excuses. Make it happen. All right, guys. Peace. Be well. Love you. Bye. Bye.
Bye.