Donor couple return favour

Donor couple return favour
By KATHERINE NEWTON - The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 13/06/2009

Ray Rongo's girl is gone but he gives blood so others like her can live.

Mr Rongo has been donating blood since his daughter Kiri asked him to before she died of kidney failure in January last year, a week before her 33rd birthday.

"She was on dialysis for about five years and she was having blood transfusions two or three times a week.

"She said, `Would you put some blood aside?"'

The first time he donated was on a whim, while visiting Ms Rongo at Wellington Hospital.

"The first time I did it she thought I was having her on. I had to pull out all the [donor] cards. She cracked up and said, `Choice, Dad'."

Just after he began donating, Ms Rongo died, but Mr Rongo and his wife, Patricia Allen, decided to keep giving blood in their daughter's memory.

"I really miss my girl," he said.

Every few weeks, he makes the trip down the hill from Houghton Bay to the Newtown blood clinic, where he donates plasma. "With blood you have to wait three months. With plasma you can do it every two weeks."

Mr Rongo said he had struggled to get some of his family to understand why he donated blood.

"I had a bit of a stink with my family. They don't like giving parts of their bodies away. But I said, 'That's my daughter'.

"One day they found out I was still giving blood and they said, 'But your girl's gone', and I said, 'But when she was alive she was taking someone else's [blood]'. This was our idea of paying them back."

Tomorrow is World Blood Donor Day and the Blood Service is looking for new donors.

Spokesman Paul Hayes said stocks of A-group blood were at their lowest in six years and supplies of O-group blood were also lower than normal.

To make an appointment to donate, call 0800 GIVE BLOOD or go to nzblood.co.nz

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/2496903/Donor-couple-return-favour