Scottish
clinic refused to accept a man’s blood donation after he refused to answer a
question asking him if he was expecting a child or had been pregnant in the
past six months, according to the Daily Mail over the weekend.
 |
| Leslie Sinclair, 66 shows the questionnaire that had a question about whether he was pregnant (Photo by Robert Perry) |
Albert
Halls Clinic in the Scottish city of Stirling insisted that the habitual blood
donor, a 66-year-old man, Leslie Sinclair had to first fill the question on the
form asking about one’s pregnancy history with a yes or no.
Leslie Sinclair
who had donated 125 pints of blood before refused to fill in the question on
the pre-donation questionnaire, claiming that he was a man and that the
question did not apply to him.
“This time around,
there was a question I hadn't seen before: 'Are you pregnant, or have you been
in the last six months?' which required a yes or no answer”, said the father of
two who has donated blood for nearly half a century.
“I pointed out
to the staff that it was impossible for me to be in that position but I was
told that I would need to answer, otherwise I couldn't give blood. I told them
that was stupid and that if I had to leave, I wouldn't be back, and that was
it, I got on my bike and cycled away” Sinclair added.
 |
| Part of the questionnaire asks if a man is pregnant, or been in the last six months (Photo by Robert Perry) |
During
the standoff that took place on Wednesday last week, health workers who turned
their minds to the “inclusiveness” notion refused to take Sinclair’s blood.
It emerged that
all potential donors are asked if they are pregnant to 'promote inclusiveness'
which the retired driver for an engineering company saw as a ‘nonsensical’
question.
“It is
nonsensical and it makes me angry because there are vulnerable people waiting
for blood, including children, and in desperate need of help. But they've been
denied my blood because of the obligation to answer a question that can't
possibly be answered”
Professor Marc
Turner, director of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS)
commented that it was a decision taken by the institution to promote
inclusiveness despite the need for blood.
“We thank Mr
Sinclair for his commitment over a long number of years. As a public body, we
take cognisance of changes in society around how such questions may be asked
without discrimination and have a duty to promote inclusiveness – therefore all
donors are now asked the same questions” Prof Turner said.
The stand-off
took place as NHS England launched a campaign earlier this week to recruit a
million more blood donors over the next five years after numbers fell due to
the Covid restrictions.
The Scottish
National Blood Transfusion Service began a drive earlier this month to find
16,000 new donors in the coming year.
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