Blood donors can redeem points earned from donations to obtain limited edition Formosan black bear travel mugs, the Kaohsiung Blood Center said yesterday, as it announced a goal of stocking 20,000 units of blood prior to the Lunar New Year.
The last month of the lunar year is National Blood Donation Month, when local centers seek to stockpile blood for use during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The blood demand in southern Taiwan — including Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Chiayi, Pingtung, Penghu and Taitung counties — is about 2,000 units per day, the center said.
Photo: Hsu Li-chuan, Taipei Times
The donation campaign aims to boost the region’s blood reserves from seven days to 10 by Lunar New Year’s Eve, it said.
The center this year continued its collaboration with the Taiwan Black Bear Conservation Association using the association’s mascot “Heibao” (黑寶) in the design of limited-edition stainless steel travel mugs, which are available in exchange for three points earned by donating blood, the center said.
People can earn a point by donating 250ml of blood and two points for 500ml, it said.
Photo: Tang Shih-ming, Taipei Times
Center doctor-in-chief Tseng Shih-pin (曾士賓) said that donating blood not only can save people, but also boosts a donor’s metabolism.
While Taiwan’s blood donation rate is high, often ranking among the highest in the world, donations fall in the winter, likely due to cold weather and students going home for the winter break, Tseng said.
Donations from young people have decreased over the past few years amid a falling birthrate and aging population, while blood demand continues to rise, he said.
Blood consumption tends to spike around Lunar New Year, which this year is to last nine days, due to falling temperatures and increased hospital visits by people with cardiovascular or gastrointestinal diseases, Kaohsiung Department of Health Director-General Huang Chih-chung (黃志中) said.
Blood stocks could be critically low during the holiday, Huang said, urging people to donate.
To encourage young people to give, the center recruited TSG Hawks outfielder Wang Po-hsuan (王博玄) and TSG Wing Stars cheerleader Kaya (昆昆) to be the campaign ambassadors in the city.
Separately, the Changhua County-based Rong Hua Charity on Sunday raffled off bottles of gold accessories, valued at NT$6,000, as prizes for people who donated 500ml at a blood drive in Changhua City.
The event attracted hundreds of donors.
A man surnamed Wang (王) from the county’s Puyan Township (埔鹽) said that he and his wife arrived at about 4am to be first in line, hoping to win a prize.
The gold accessories come in shapes such as Chinese-style ingots, coins and lucky turtles.
Other raffle prizes included mobile phones, dehumidifiers, vacuum cleaners, headphones and gift vouchers worth up to NT$1,000.
The Taichung Blood Donation Center on Sunday also held a blood drive with the goal of amassing 60,000 units this month.
The city has about four days of blood in reserve, with only three days’ worth of type A and type O blood supplies, far below the secure inventory level of 10 days, the center said.
If the blood supply is not increased, it might be unable to meet the demand of central Taiwan, which amounts to 1,800 units per day across Taichung and Changhua, Nantou and Yunlin counties, it said.
Additional reporting by Tsai Shu-yuan
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
BACK TO WINTER: A strong continental cold air mass would move south on Tuesday next week, bringing colder temperatures to northern and central Taiwan A tropical depression east of the Philippines could soon be upgraded to be the first tropical storm of this year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the next cold air mass is forecast to arrive on Monday next week. CWA forecaster Cheng Jie-ren (鄭傑仁) said the first tropical depression of this year is over waters east of the Philippines, about 1,867km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), and could strengthen into Tropical Storm Nokaen by early today. The system is moving slowly from northwest to north, and is expected to remain east of the Philippines with little chance of affecting Taiwan,
RSS