[B]By GABRIELLE BLAKE[\/B]
\n[I]Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (SW)
\nJoint Region Edge Staff[\/I]<\/p>\n
U.S. Naval Hospital Guam held a christening ceremony for its new blood donor center in the hospital\u2019s laboratory in Agana Heights, Guam on Jan. 26. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need blood banks to support our patients here,\u201d said Lt. John Stephan, USNH Guam blood bank officer. \u201cMost importantly, it\u2019s to provide them blood products in case of surgeries or any kind of trauma that comes in. We\u2019re there to provide support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Karla Manuel, of USNH Guam, was the first to have her blood drawn and donated in the new center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a good cause,\u201d said Manuel. \u201cYour blood gets split into different components, so the one pint you donate can save a few lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the opening of the center, USNH Guam received blood donations from Okinawa, Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that we have our own blood donor center here, we can go out, we can collect blood and we have it available within a shorter period of time than it would be to get it from Okinawa,\u201d Stephan said.<\/p>\n
The new center will help to meet a great demand for something anyone could need at any time.<\/p>\n
\u201cNinety-six percent of the population relies on 4 percent of the population to donate blood,\u201d said Lt. Cmdr. Josephine Fajardo, the hospital\u2019s laboratory department head. \u201cWe need to make that 4 percent grow.\u201d <\/p>\n
The blood donor center is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8am to 2pm at the hospital\u2019s laboratory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really look forward to the future of continuing and expanding our donor collections on the island,\u201d Stephan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. Naval Hospital Guam held a christening ceremony for its new blood donor center in the hospital\u2019s laboratory in Agana Heights, Guam on Jan. 26. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}