Donation or Rotation?

As a Medical Lab. Scientist, a profession I practice with more than enough grumbling to stagnate a lake, I see life-threatening cases every day. In their different shades and shapes, I see people who disclose pathologically induced discomforts of myriad kinds. This has hardened my heart of some sort, against the usually gory sight of blood and gaping flesh. Yet, I noticed some two days back that the hardened part of my heart is only a very minute dot when compared to the mushy lot.
Just as we were rounding off work at my venue of private practice, in comes this slim young man in his say, late twenties. He sought to see my boss. He was informed that my boss was away briefly for personal issues. He insisted on waiting.
Soon after, my boss walks in and the established familiarity affords them barely heard pleasantries. Afterwards he (my boss) says to me “bleed him”. This in medical parlance means, ‘take some blood from him’. Quantity of collected blood depends on the need. This varies from simple tests like PCV to blood donation that can take as much as 450mls of blood from the donors divinely awarded quota.
In this case, our guest, a donor, had to lose a pint of blood to our expectant blood bank. The problem was he was classed by my boss as a ‘professional donor’. I found great uneasiness at the title. I quizzed myself: how professional can a donor be? Who even made it a profession? We are talking here about losing blood deliberately and someone refers to such as a profession?
Now that the title had triggered my concern, I took the donor aside for a casual chat. He confessed with a good weight of confidence how often he donates and that he does it however with caution.
WHO recommends a donation only as frequent as four times annually. The young man donates ehhhhh……well, monthly! He does this as a remunerated donor, as WHO likes to refer to them- donors who get paid for losing some of what we others withhold fiercely.
I dare not reveal all what he shared with me not only because of how heartbreaking they are but also because of how you might henceforth perceive me.
The bible says that the life of everything dwells in the blood. I understand as a result why a religious denomination does not subscribe to the idea of blood donation. If life is in our blood- donated or protected- and it is, then why should it ever cross our minds to sell it and worse still sell it for less than N5,000? Is it gruesome poverty, plump ignorance or simply the near zero value we place on life?
Has this nation become so poor that the citizens’ trade a bit of their lives to sustain what is left? Is that donation or rotation? I listened again to the memory of his voice and these words are of them all, loudest: “I dey donate sometimes, three times a month”. That much ‘life’ traded for just N1,500 per pint.
Hmmm!