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Overcast ‘Donating blood is not that hard’
Jamshed Ghadiali marked his 350th contribution last month
Jamshed Ghadiali tries to donate blood platelets to the American Red Cross every four weeks — something he’s done since 1997.
“I just want people to know that donating blood is not that hard,” said Ghadiali, 76, a retired insurance salesman from Baldwin who is originally from India.
He said he wants to spread awareness of the need for blood, and spur his neighbors to donate more of it. Ghadiali made his 350th donation on Dec. 18 — 57 years after his first one, to the Indian Red Cross Society, in August 1965.
“Some people say, ‘They won’t take my blood,’” Ghadiali said. “I want people to speak with their doctor, and if they say it’s OK, go to the center, answer all the questions truthfully, and let the professionals decide whether they should take your blood or not.”
Approximately 3 percent of Americans are yearly blood donors, which Ghadiali said is not enough to support our modern medical system. He recalled the New York City blackout of 1977, when much stored blood was lost because many hospitals in the city didn’t have generators to keep the supply refrigerated, and The New York Times reported that the Greater New York Blood Program was forced to cancel all of its bloodmobile operations, which normally collected 1,000 pints of blood a day.
Ghadiali donated blood days later.
“So you know, you can’t buy blood off the shelves, and there are no blood manufacturers,” he said. “So everybody needs to give blood if they can.”
Although 350 blood donations over nearly six decades is significant, Ghadiali said that it averages out to just over 6.1 donations per year, which, he insisted, isn’t a large sacrifice for the average person. In 1992 he created an Excel spreadsheet to mark the dates and types of donation he has made over the years, and he has logged them meticulously.
For example, he recorded the first time he donated platelets with his left arm — his 308th donation, in March 2016. (Platelets are the all-important component of blood that makes it clot when we bleed.) A month earlier, he had noted that a blood technician named Audrey had inserted a needle incorrectly. In June 2018, he marked his 300th donation in the United States, on the 42nd anniversary of his first, in 1976.
Now Ghadiali donates blood platelets once a week. His blood type is AB positive, and his blood has a large volume of platelets, so he’s gotten into a habit of donating them on a regular schedule.
“I go on the computer, and book by appointment on Monday morning at 7:45 a.m.,” he said. “I’m trying to (make) the point that there is no excuse to not give blood. Even if you’re busy, you can get up on a Sunday morning and donate.”
He made his first donation at a blood center in Mumbai, India — where he donated over 20 times to the Indian Red Cross — 57 years ago. He was 19 at the time, and said he did it with three friends from high school, out of boredom.
“We were crazy teenagers,” Ghadiali recalled. “We were looking for something fun to do, so we decided to go donate blood.”
A testimonial shared with the Herald by the Indian Red Cross Society shows that Ghadiali became a regular blood donator in Mumbai, and donated a total of over 1.5 gallons. Still, he said, he gave only sporadically in his home country, and didn’t yet have a sense of duty to do so regularly.
Ghadiali earned degrees in chemistry and physics from Bombay University in 1968, and went on to complete a master’s in human resources at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 1971. He worked for the Indian Banks Association before emigrating to the United States with a permanent residency visa and settling in Queens in 1976. Three years later he earned an MBA at LIU Brooklyn. In the meantime, he donated some three gallons of whole blood at New York-Presbyterian Queens hospital from 1976 to 1981.
Ghadiali worked for the European American Bank from 1977 to 1987, and then switched to insurance sales, working at MetLife from 1987 until he retired in December 2012.
He moved to Baldwin in January 1981, and has lived there ever since. Over the course of his blood-donating career, he has given whole blood 103 times, plasma 34 times, and platelets 213 times. The American Red Cross estimates that one pint of blood can save up to three lives, meaning that Ghadiali has likely saved more than 310 lives with his donated whole blood alone.
