Blood donation as a corporate tradition
Why financial giants become partners for the Blood Service
EKATERINA USPENSKAYA: Indeed, on 21 October 2010 we signed the Agreement on social cooperation with the FMBA of Russia. This step has let us develop the blood donor movement inside our corporation to a new level. Before that we had held the Donor Days for two years in our branches – helped sick children, victims of terrorist acts and other people in need of blood transfusion. With each new event there were more and more employees wanting to give blood – we have very strong traditions of voluntarism and charity work in our corporation. And then a group of our employees from the Novosibirsk branch office suggested holding blood donor events regularly, and – what is the most important – simultaneously at all regional directorates of the URALSIB Financial Corporation.
I would like to note that today the corporation is represented in 49 Russian regions. It’s obvious, that the organization of donor campaigns of such size is impossible without the support from the Blood Service. The Agreement on cooperation between URALSIB and the Federal Medical-Biological Agency has not only contributed to the expansion of participants’ geography and increased system of the campaigns, but also to attract clients and partners of the corporation to these campaigns.
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EKATERINA USPENSKAYA: Now we have centralized Donor Days held twice a year. The first campaign was held for two weeks – from 1 to 15 March 2011. For this campaign we set coordination centers in all regions where our branches operate. The centers consisted of representatives of FMBA and the corporation employees. 26 branch offices of URALSIB Financial Corporation from all over the country took part in the spring campaign. 524 people donated blood. By the way the doctors evaluate the quality of donated blood as very good. The donors from URALSIB are healthy people!
BLOOD SERVICE: Being healthy is a kind of corporate tradition?
EKATERINA USTINOVA: More or less. The corporation has a number of healthy lifestyle programs. Today they include almost a half of our staff. These activities have good results, one of which is a minimal number of medical rejections during blood donation.
As for the corporate traditions, I would like to tell about one more – all URALSIB donors refuse from the compensation for food, and give collected funds to charity – orphans and children whose parents do not have custody. This year the money through the Fund “Give life” has been transferred to the Russian Children Clinical Hospital to treat children with blood diseases. By the way, our staff has had long relationships with this hospital – donors in the corporation have several times donated blood for the little patients and some employees are the donors of platelets in the Children Hospital.
I will add that each year there become more and more regular donors in URALSIB, they are those who donate blood and its components not only during corporate campaigns, but on their own too. It’s a real “golden fund” for any blood transfusion station.
BLOOD SERVICE: What does the management of the corporation think about rising number of donors in the corporation? Isn’t the top management of the corporation worried about having to give 2 days off to such number of employees?
EKATERINA USPENSKAYA: To the credit of the management I should say that they give every possible support to the donor movement of the staff, including the administrative one. The right of the donor to extra days off is strictly observed in the corporation. It’s necessary to add, that the top-managers of URALSIB do not only support corporate donor campaigns, but take and active part in them, setting a good example for the staff.
BLOOD SERVICE: And the last question: what plans does the corporation have to promote corporate blood donation?
EKATERINA USPENSKAYA: URALSIB is getting ready for the next donation campaign. It’s planned for November 2011.
For the Russian Engineering Union, donorship became an important idea uniting people - employees of hundreds of enterprises. The wealth of experience of the donation development in the Union is an example of how to build a socially responsible work in a company at a high level and with the maximum result. This was told us by the vice-president of the Russian Engineering Union, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Economic Policy Vladimir Gutenev.
20th of April – National Blood Donor Day. We thank and congratulate all donors in Russia for their willingness to donate blood for patients in need of a transplant. Many donor’s events are held and of course many people donate blood on this day. We often ask donors in our interview about the donation procedure, what they feel, what they scare, what it means for them. Story about from Yegor Tischins’s life will help to answer these questions.
On the 7th All-Russian Forum of Blood Service the Blood Donor Center of the Republic of Mordovia got the majority of votes and became the absolute winner in the competition of professional mastery «Blood Service’s institution – 2014». Olga G. Makedonskaya, the medical director of Blood Donor Center in the Republic of Mordovia, disclosed her secret of success and told us her plans for the future in the interview.
Each donor has his own story of how he joined the donor movement. Here is one of them, the story of Sergey Nikolaevich Yefimov, "the Honorary Donor of the USSR", head of the public organization "The Donors of Murmansk".
Why there can’t be too much donor blood and about the use of regular blood donation not only for patients, but for donors as well.
About some results of the promotion Program of voluntary blood donation in our country.
What the musical project “MUZARTERIA” teaches and what a song about volunteering and donorship should be.
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