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The first Porcupine blood bank

Today, most of us take blood transfusions for granted.  It wasn’t always this way. 

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Today, most of us take blood transfusions for granted.  It wasn’t always this way.  Picture the plight of an average person needing blood in the days before 1946.  Lying in a hospital, weak and badly in need of blood, the patient might gasp out the names of perhaps a dozen of their friends or co-workers whom they hoped would be willing to give blood.

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Hospital authorities would contact these people and then the long search for the right blood type would begin.  If no one was found with your blood type, then the services of a professional blood donor would have to be employed, adding to the patient’s financial worries or embarrassment, for these were also the days before OHIP and its comprehensive health care.

Long before the establishment of OHIP in 1959, miners in this area and their families enjoyed a unique, yet invaluable health service.  In 1942, Robert Dye, manager of the Dome Mine, instituted a medical plan for his mine’s employees and their families.  Following this success, in 1944, the Porcupine Mines Managers group started a similar plan that provided medical care for all area miners and their families.  At its peak, there would have been at least 17 mines involved.  It was called the Porcupine Mines Employees’ Medical Services Association, known as the PMEMSA.  Each month, the programme was funded by payroll deduction and there was a 50-cent user fee for each doctor’s visit.

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As a partial answer to the blood transfusion problem, the Dome Mine devised a plan in 1944. They had just joined the Porcupine Mines Employees Medical Service Association. Two of the Dome Mine’s First Aid men, Ron Mansfield and John Newman, began the arduous task of typing the blood of over 1,100 people, in order to establish the first “Walking Blood Bank” for this area.  The two men spent many volunteer hours over the next two years helping to complete the task.

Should someone require a particular blood type for a transfusion, the records of those 1,100 prospective donors was available to the two local hospitals of the time. (Porcupine General Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital) This made the search much faster, especially in a time of critical importance.

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The Timmins Lions Club realized the seriousness of this situation and determined to do something about it.  They appealed to the public for funds which they used to purchase two suitable, fast-freezing refrigerators and the necessary bottles, needles, tubing, chemicals and other equipment necessary for setting up a blood bank.

Staff would be required to control and operate the proposed bank and a suitable location was also needed.  The Porcupine Health Unit (which was the first Health Unit in Ontario, and started by Dr. Graham B. Lane, himself a member of the Lions Club) had premises within the Timmins Municipal building.  Funding for the part time services of a Registered Nurse was paid for by the Timmins Lions Club, and the Town of Timmins provided the location for the first Blood Bank in the Porcupine.

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The Bank was opened in the fall of 1946 and volunteers of all ages immediately responded with more than 150 donors giving approximately 300 pints of blood in the first two years of its operation.

The collection and distribution of blood and blood products was assumed by the Canadian Red Cross, who supplied both hospitals from their Sudbury location. To quote Betty Tambeau, a former Registered Laboratory technician from Porcupine General Hospital, “The fastest way to get our weekly blood supply from Sudbury was BPX to Krakana’s and they would have a taxi bring it to PGH. to us. And although there was a regular supply, there were times, such as a mining or bad car accident, when both hospitals would run out of blood, and even during the 1960s, the “Walking Blood Bank” was called into service.  The work done by Ron Mansfield and John Newman, recording the blood types of donors was always accurate”, according to the now-retired Lab Technician.

Today, blood is obtained through the Canadian Blood Services through clinics at different localities several times a year. We simply take for granted, that blood will be available any time it is needed. It wasn’t always this way.

That’s my view from Over the Hill.

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