You have obviously not found yourself in a bad place!

I donate regularly and will continue to do so to help put food on my table and keep my four children in a home!

After my husband got injured at work and was off work and my son had major surgury and spent a week in the hopital and had to have follow up visits 2x a week not to mention all the extra medical costs involved,wheelchair, portopotty,ect…

I have been homeless with my family and seen people at their worst! My experience has opened my eyes to the evils that lie in this world! Because of these experiences I give freely and help those in need! You need a serious reality check!

The money I have earned donating plasma has put food on my table for my family of six! Unemployment is the highest it has ever been! We had 300 applicants apply for just one minimum wage nusrey job! Times are desparate and shame on you for trying to make people feel guilty or bad for doing what they have to make ends meet! I give freely when I can! I donate time regularly with out pay to help others in need! Because I have been there! I know what it is like!

Obviously you have never found yourself in a bad place! I have been there! Homeless with four kids and let me tell you it is humbling!!! More often than not people will not help you, they look down on you like you are scum! They claim to want to help but treat you like dirt! You need a reality check!

I will continue to donate plasma to keep food on my table and my children in a home!!!!

SHAME ON YOU!

Before you even donate they do a mini physical and test your blood to make sure it is ok to donate.

The actual donation process takes 45 min to an hour. You are hooked up to a machine that takes your whole blood out, separates the red and white cells, while it is separating you are getting saline pumped into your arm which is a bit uncomfortable and you taste itand it makes you really cold, then once separated it pumps the red cells back into your arm, this happens 4 to 5 times and when you finally reach 2 pints, it then pumps blood thinner in your arm to prevent blood clots, this stuff is really nasty and leaves you feeling a little weak, nauseated and winded, so there is alot more risk involved.

You sometimes get people that are not experienced at hooking the IV needle in your arm and stick it through your veins in your arms, this happened in both my arms the last time I donated causing hemotomas, (giant black and blue and green bruising) sometimes running from the middle of your forearm to the middle of your bi~cept and then you can not donate for two months!

Not to mention the lines for donating plasma are huge now and you spend close to 4 or 5 hours of your day waiting, I have spent up to 8 hours.

These centers have been paying plasma donors as far back as I can remember, my first donation was back in 1981. Back then they were paying donors $ 45.00 on the first donation and went up after that, the more you donated the more you made. Now you only get $25.00 on the first donation of the week and $40.00 on the second and that is only if you weigh a certain amount, people that weigh less get paid less. The pay has been steadily declining and you have to deal more with inexperienced tech’s that more often than not hurt you, so I believe plasma donor should be paid!

Donating plasma has allowed me to put food on my table for my family of six. We would have gone hungry otherwise or had to go to a food bank and get food and the food you get there is minimal and most of it is food that has expired or going to expire soon and the people there make you feel like crap for struggling to make ends meet!

Our unemployment rate is huge and with no jobs to be had out there this is a win win situation and a life saver both ways!

Kathy

Also for the companies around here in austin texas, they will not take ANYONE under 18. No matter what. I am not sure if this is a federal, state, or company law thing.

David H, they keep it marked as a donation, that way they can give you money, legally, they can’t pay you for plasma. SO you donate time and plasma, they donate money for your time.
The same thing is done for almost ALL medical drug tests, here in austin we have LOTS of these companies, CEDRA, PPD, cirex (sp) and some other smaller ones. These guys pay you 2000$ just to live at their resort, and yes its more of a resort/jail type thing then anything. To take some meds and give blood tests. They donaote money to you for you donating your time to help test their new drug.

I started donating whole blood on my 18th birthday, the day i learned about plasma donations last christmas was the day i quit doing whole blood.
BOTH whole blood and plasma saves lifes, granted not all plasma donoated is used to help people directly, but some is, my favorit is vacsantions for kids, or for people who were in a fire and have burn scars. The plasma is used for other things too. Whole blood is always used to help people. Either way, you are doing good for the world by donating.

Who is going to spend 3 hours a week and have a needle in their arm for an hour each time. Nobody.

So people “donote” money for you for you “donating” your time to them.
This is also way there is NO tax involvment after you “make” so much money. They donote to you and you donate to them. So you don’t lose any of the time, nor do you report it. Unless some states have created laws for this? In texas there is none.

Blood is a whole other story, blood you can do every 2 months and no big deal, people don’t feel like its a choir, they feel good about it. With plasma, i couldnt do that twice a week for no gain….

The money? So worth it! Where i live in austin texas its 20$ first time and 35$ second time. And there are ALWAYS a type of deal going on like if you donate 5 times in a row without missing its an extra 10$, then 7 times an extra 20$. The other day, one donation was worth 65$ to me!
Bottom line, WITHOUT the extra stuff they throw at you, it comes out to be about 22$ an hour provided you go at a 50% business level, its about 26$ an hour if you go when they are not busy! Where i am if you go after work, its about a 3 hour time in the building, if you go when its slow an hour and 1-20 mins at max.

And forget gas, this is also a cheap car payment! Or retirement. Or in my case my “play money” all money i get from plasma is loaded onto a debit card (the company does that) and i use that card for eating out, movies, my xbox live account, making computers, video games, ect….
And even then, i got like 800$ on the darn thing right now. Time to get to an ATM and take that money and give my savings account nice boost!

By offering compensation, they are increasing awareness and some people may even get accustomed to donating so that they can feel a little better about themselves. The patient’s getting some blood/plasma, The pharmaceutical companies’ are getting more resources to develop better medicines, and the donors are getting a little extra cash to pay for the rising costs of gas, insurance, and credit cards. I don’t see anything wrong with that because everybody wins and nobody loses. Sure, there are the uninhibited few who cannot see beyond themselves and lie about their medical history for the cash, but that’s why ANYTHING that’s donated should be thoroughly tested.

We should know by now that everyone lies or may not know how significant something they do is in relation to their bodies. I’m sure people would scoff at the ibuprofen question in the screening process because the majority of our doesn’t look beyond the directions portion of our medications(sorry if that ibuprofen bit came out of nowhere. I’ve been reading a lot of sites while researching gay rights. Did you know that gay men can’t donate blood? I see the reasoning, but I still think it’s wrong).