An online petition calling for the improvement of blood donations in the lower South West has been hailed a success, with this week's announcement that residents in Busselton will soon be able to donate blood close to home.
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Australian Red Cross Lifeblood confirmed Busselton would join Armadale and Cockburn on the WA pop-up donor centre trial schedule, due to start collecting blood in the second half of 2024.
Nicole Gregson, who launched the Change.org petition in memory of her late father Graeme Ridge, said she was excited by the news and was keen to support the service further.
"When the official dates are released, for some time in Spring this year, with the help of the LifeBlood team, I will be starting a blood drive in honour of Dad for those who want to donate in his memory," she said.
Lifeblood Executive Director of Donor Experience, Cath Stone said they were thrilled to be planning visits to the three new locations.
"For the past six months we've had a dedicated team conducting extensive research and analysis to identify suitable locations for the pop-up and working through operational logistics," she said.
"We know these three communities will be very excited to be able to donate closer to home, and we're confident there are enough potential donors in these locations to make the pop-up visits successful.
"We're particularly excited to be adding another regional town in Busselton to the list, as one of the benefits of a pop-up donor centre is it enables us to provide more donation options for regional communities."
Pop-up donor centres are mobile donor centres that operate from a local venue, such as a community hall, and are set-up and packed down for each visit.
Ms Stone said Lifeblood was still in the process of finalising more sites for the pop-up trial.
"We're currently working through venue logistics for a number of other sites, as well as licensing regulations for all our sites," she said.
"We hope to be able to share the locations of the remaining sites, as well as start dates for the pop-up very soon. We're confident the pop-up will be up and running this spring."
With demand for blood continuing to increase, the new WA pop-up will help increase donations across the country and is planned to collect around 40 blood donations a day.
Once established, the pop-up will operate for an initial trial period of 12 months.
At the end of the trial, Lifeblood will review how well appointments have been filled.
All blood donations made at the WA pop-up will be sent to Perth for testing and processing before being distributed to hospitals around the country as needed.
