A drive collected 173 pints of blood from 182 donors at Yokota Air Base, Japan, on Aug. 21-22, 2004. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — The first blood drive sponsored by the U.S. military in a decade on Japan’s main island took place recently at this airlift hub in western Tokyo.
The drive collected 173 pints of blood from 182 donors on Wednesday and Thursday.
“The goal is to get access to new donors that don’t always have the opportunity to donate and to get more fresh blood into the operational system so we can maintain the level of operations of our hospitals,” Col. Daniel Gilardi, commander of the 374th Medical Support Squadron, told Stars and Stripes in an interview Wednesday.
Senior Airman Mohamadou Ndiaye, a medical technician at Yokota was in high spirits Wednesday, the first day of the blood drive at the Samurai Fitness Center.
“I like to give blood. It’s simple and it can make a big difference,” Ndiaye told Stars and Stripes at the event. “I worked in labor and delivery before, and if something happens to the mother, having blood there is pretty convenient.”
The blood drive also serves as a proof of concept for future blood drives on Honshu, Japan’s main island.
The medical group at Yokota has begun talks with Naval Hospital Yokosuka, 62 miles to the southeast at Yokosuka Naval Base, with hopes to begin hosting blood drives every six months, Master Sgt. Terrence Raybon, the clinical laboratory flight chief for the 374th Medical Group, told Stars and Stripes in an interview Wednesday.
The location of the biannual blood drives would alternate between the air base and the naval base if an agreement is reached.
A drive collected 173 pints of blood from 182 donors at Yokota Air Base, Japan, on Aug. 21-22, 2004. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)
While blood drives occasionally occur on U.S. military installations in Japan, they are typically conducted by the Japanese Red Cross, which maintains control of the collected blood and goes toward helping the local Japanese population, Gilardi said.
“We have a partnership with them, but it’s not the traditional partnership,” he said.
Typically, Red Cross blood drives on U.S. military installations earn Department of Defense credits used to acquire blood from the Red Cross.
Military-sponsored blood drives allow U.S military clinics to keep possession of the blood and distribute it wherever it may be needed without dipping into their accumulated credits, Gilardi explained.
The U.S. military blood collection program in the Pacific is run by a team from Naval Hospital Okinawa. It primarily runs blood drives on Okinawa but has used the Yokota drive as training for the mobile collection team.
“This is really the DOD community supporting the DOD community because this blood will go directly into military treatment facilities,” Gilardi said.
