Major Betts Walks into Dyte Hall 15 minutes before his appointment time. The unseasonably cold morning has him bee-lining it for the coffee; “Got to make sure I make the Temp requirements” he jokes.
While giving blood first thing in the morning might make some nervous, Maj Betts is laid back, and no wonder; this is his 100th time.
As he works through his Timmies, he looks around for familiar faces, seeing several.
“There’s Ted, Nate- we should see a few others today too.”
The Brampton Native started donating in high school when his mother was organizing local blood drives.
“She did that for probably 12, 13 years. That helped get me in the door.”
Forty years later, he’s still coming.
Maj Betts has been serving in the Canadian Armed Forces for 36 years. In his current position of Base Operations Commanding Officer, he helped smooth the way for the restart of donation clinics at CFB Borden as federal restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic began to ease.
“Obviously Covid shut everything down for a while,” said Maj Betts. “Even once things began to open, not many clinics could run yet. I was going up to Owen Sound for a while there.”
In the past, blood drives had been a less structured affair, with donors simply showing up and getting in line. In the advent of pandemic restrictions, more deliberate measures were implemented, and an appointment system was put in place.
“Once I saw how efficient and safe that system was, I pushed to get it here,” he explained. “It allowed us to start up these clinics again on base.”
“The need is constant,” said Brittany Kreuter, one of the phlebotomists running the donations at the mobile clinic. “Sick Kids [hospital] in Toronto goes through 150 units of blood a day. And if you consider that red blood cells have a 42-day shelf life – yeah, there’s literally always need.”
The Canadian Blood service has been collecting donations in Canada since 1998, when they took over from the Canadian Red Cross. Strict screening practices mean that Canada boasts one of the safest national blood supplies on the planet. Mobile clinics like this one allow more people to donate, more frequently.
One donation can save up to three lives. To find a donor centre where you can help, visit www.blood.ca.
By Cpl Dustin LeVasseur
