With the successful holding of the Beijing Olympic Games in August, the volunteer spirit has seen an upsurge in the city. Compared with the usual “off-season” for blood collection in past years, street blood collection stations have received much more donated blood this year, This is unprecedented in history. According to statistics released by Beijing Red Cross Blood Center, over 20,000 units (200 ml per unit) of whole blood have been collected at street blood collection stations in Beijing from August 8 to August 24, in spite of restrictions on blood collection volume aimed at avoiding waste caused by excessive collection of blood. There is an increase of 1.7％ over the same period of last year.  

During the Olympic Games, we had a sample survey on blood donors. According to the survey result, nearly 70％ of the donors are permanent residents, 30％ are migrant workers and about 70％ are aged between 18 and 30. This result shows that the majority of the donors are residents of Beijing Municipality and youths have become the “main force” of blood donation. In addition, the survey indicates that 64.7％ of the respondents hope to support the Beijing Olympic Games through blood donation, 58.8％ donated blood out of inspiration from the Wenchuan Earthquake, 57.8％ hopes to help those in need of blood, and 49％ believe blood donation is good for their health. All these figures indicate that blood donation awareness among citizens of Beijing is on the rise, and more and more people are actively participating in free blood donation, leading to the phenomenon of “more blood donation in slack season”. 

The Blood Donation Act promulgated on October 1, 1998 calls for healthy citizens aged between 18 and 55 to make free blood donations. The precious blood can only be obtained through selfless blood donations. And blood donation is the only way to guarantee safe clinical use of blood. The clinical use of blood in Beijing always tops other cities. Over the past ten years, the blood volume needed in clinical use has seen an yearly increase of 15％. With the proactive promotion of various government departments, and the joint efforts of the general public, the proportion of voluntary blood donation has jumped from less than 1% in 1998 to 100% in 2006, putting an end to the necessity of getting blood from other provinces over the past 20 years or so. Annually about 100 tons of blood in Beijing come from voluntary blood donation, realizing self-sufficiency in medical use of blood. 

Blood collection on streets can be easily affected by weather conditions and environmental changes, thus leading to its “slack season” in hot summer and freezing winter. In a bid to meet the demands for clinical blood use in Beijing, particularly urgent use of much blood in case of emergent mass injuries and deaths, we have adopted the approach of blood donation registration and formed a team of voluntary blood donors made up of permanent residents of Beijing. Once urgent blood use is needed, we can contact these volunteers by phone or via text messages to collect blood of the needed types and volume. This can effectively meet the urgent demand for blood and avoid waste due to long-term storage of excessive blood. On the advent of the Olympics, we have established a backup team of 170,000 blood donors whose blood donations are precisely scheduled. It is our sincere hope that more and more permanent residents of Beijing will join in to make their contribution.