Australian Navy Bases See Red
Navy members from around the country have been working hard for the last three months saving more than 3,200 lives during the Defence Blood Challenge. Teams from HMA Ships Cairns, Waterhen and Penguin and the Australian Defence Force Academy recently rolled up their sleeves to help protect Australia’s blood supply.
At last count, Navy provided 1084 donations of whole blood or plasma, almost reaching last year’s total with two weeks to run.
The final push is on Friday 25 November when the mobile blood donation centre visits HMAS Penguin.
Warrant Officer Aviation Technician Avionics Ian Daley is encouraging all Sydney based personnel, family and friends to register for Navy’s Red 25 team and to make a donation at Penguin on the day.
“Our target is to get 100 donations in a single day. It would be a great cap to our efforts for the Defence Blood Challenge,” Warrant Officer Daley said.
“Not only will it put Navy over 1000 donations for the Challenge, Penguin can achieve the highest percentage of donors from the numbers we have at the base.
“We’re a small base with a big heart and the mobile donor centre is a great way to get Navy people through to help this worthy cause.”
Defence Blood Challenge Ambassador, Warrant Officer Combat System Manager Chris Boardman, said Navy will comfortably increase the number of donations over last year.
“We’ve seen an awesome effort from Navy this year. HMAS Albatross filled every seat for an entire day when the mobile donation centre visited there,” Warrant Officer Boardman said.
“HMA Ships Stirling and Cairns continue to turn out in great numbers and our smaller Commands of Navy Headquarters Tasmania and South Australia have punched well above their weight throughout the Challenge.”
