 Mae'n gweithio i gyllidol i'r cymdeithasiediad rhaglen i ni i fyw, drws i'r ddweud o'r fawr 11308 yn y gwy Camedie yng Nghymysg Gynffenn o Simon Hussain, i fanonam chi'n cael eu cwmpain 2014. Mae'n cyfan yn fawr i gyd wedi gelu i chi, maen nhw nid gwych â'r'ig byw i gyd, ac i ddweud y llwyster yn cyfythio i siarad unexpectedrach oh mewn rhaid i'r cyfysig, maeni am ddod o'r gwad ac yw yw yw yw, yn 7 mlynedd, rwy'n meddwl i'n gweithio. I'm delighted to bring this debate to the chamber and I would like to thank my colleagues from different parties who have enabled me to do so by supporting the motion. I'm particularly grateful to those who have chosen to speak in the debate tonight and I look forward to hearing their contributions. This debate provides a fantastic opportunity to draw the attention of the wider public to the Imam Hussein blood donation campaign and to the importance of donating blood in general. I would like to welcome Iftikar Ali, Shabir Beg and Asif Sheik of the Edinburgh Allul Bates Society, Jennifer Wilson and Frances Steele of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and the members of the Islamic Unity Society, all of whom have joined us in the public gallery, as well as everyone else who has made the effort to attend the debate this evening. The Edinburgh Allul Bates Society, the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and the Islamic Unity Society have worked together to organise blood donation sessions tomorrow and this coming Saturday at the donor centre on Loristan Place. They have also worked together to promote this amongst the Muslim community in Edinburgh and the Lothians. The Edinburgh initiative is part of a wider campaign, which included donation sessions in Glasgow last week and elsewhere across the United Kingdom, with other sessions being held in cities including Manchester, London, Leeds and Birmingham. The Imam Hussein blood donation campaign was launched in 2006 and was the first of its kind in the UK. The campaign was initiated to encourage members of the Muslim community to donate blood and was named after Imam Hussein for a reason. Imam Hussein, who lived in the seventh century, was the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and is one of the most important figures in Islam. Imam Hussein is known and admired for refusing to compromise his own values and for being a selfless person, sacrificing his own blood in the Islamic month of Muharram in the fight against tyranny and for the benefit of the wider community. It was therefore very apt to name the campaign after him. Muharram is the first month in the Islamic new year and is currently under way. Holding the blood donation campaign during Muharram is not only a fitting tribute to Imam Hussein's sacrifice, it also makes for a good new year's resolution to regularly start donating blood. For those of us who are not of the Islamic faith, this is something for all of us to consider when we make our own new year's resolutions eight weeks from today. As much as the Imam Hussein blood donation campaign, which is aimed at the Muslim community in particular, deserves to be supported, what we would all want to take away from today's debate is that we need more regular blood donors from all backgrounds, religions and cultures in Scotland. As the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service quite rightly does not ask donors about their ethnicity, it is not possible to identify whether there is any ethnic or religious group which provides more or fewer blood donations than any other, but does it matter? Surely all initiatives that are designed to encourage anybody who is physically suitable and willing to donate blood are to be welcomed and encouraged, that is why I am so pleased to be part of this debate today. If you were asked to guess the percentage of active blood donors in Scotland, would you guess that this is 25%, 20% or perhaps 10%? There are currently 139,000 active blood donors in Scotland, this is less than 4% of the eligible population. The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service considers, as the eligible population, those between 17 and 70 years old who weigh more than 50 kilos. The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service is in need of 800 donors every day, each donor providing one unit. On average, 645 units are drawn each day, which means that we really need more regular donations to meet existing demand. One may not think that going to the donor centre once and donating blood makes a huge difference to what is required. However, one single blood donation can save up to three adult lives and up to seven children's lives. One woman can donate her blood up to three times a year, a man up to four times a year. That means that a woman could save up to nine adult lives and 21 children's lives in a single year. A man can save up to 12 adult lives and 28 children's lives each year. Just allow the poignancy of that fact to sink in and reflect on the difference that blood donations can make. Another fact that particularly struck me is that a mere three teaspoons of blood is often enough to keep a premature baby alive. I know a number of people in this Parliament who stir more sugar than that into their coffee, so let us imagine how many lives are touched by that one donation. It is the lives of this baby's parents, siblings, other children within the family and the circle of family friends. It is not only the life of that tiny little human being that is positively influenced by one blood donation but the whole family and extended family. Of course, blood donations are required in trauma situations such as road traffic collisions and complications at childbirth and during surgery, but they also benefit people who are living with leukemia and other forms of cancer on a more regular basis. That means that there is a constant need for blood donations for a variety of situations. I commend those who will be donating their blood as part of the campaign this week, as well as all regular blood donors of all faiths and of no faith in Edinburgh and across the Lothian region. I hope that many people will be inspired to make their own contribution in the future. Finally, I would like to thank the Edinburgh Allul Bates Society, the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and the Islamic Unity Society for organising the Edinburgh Initiative of the Imam Hussein Blood Donation Campaign 2014 and for enabling me to bring this issue of blood donation to the attention of the Parliament this evening. I wish them every success with the donation sessions tomorrow and on Saturday in Edinburgh this year and for many years to come. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much, and I call on Malcolm Chisholm. I congratulate Jim Eadie on securing a debate about this important campaign that aims to encourage blood donation by evoking the positive lessons from the life of Imam Hussein. As we've heard, the campaign is being run by the Edinburgh Allul Bates Society in conjunction with the Islamic Unity Society and the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service. I joined Jim Eadie in welcoming the people that he mentioned from the Edinburgh Allul Bates Society. I can add to that Zahara Hassan, who was also in the gallery and who invited me recently to an event organised by the Edinburgh Allul Bates Society. I'm very well aware that the association's objective is to advance the understanding of key teaching of Islam and promote religious and racial harmony. That is the context for the campaign, which aims simultaneously to further awareness of the life of Imam Hussein and address a lack of blood supply. It points out that the campaign works because of the millions of people worldwide who are inspired by his kindness, an example of sacrifice. They can then give blood as a way to help others in need and live up to these high ideals. The significant benefits of donation should not be underestimated, as Jim Eadie has reminded us, that every unit of blood that is donated could save or improve the lives of up to three individuals, depending on the circumstances. On blood donation more generally, too, we should remember the words of the great social scientist Richard Titmuss, who said that we cannot understand the national blood transfusion service without also understanding the national health service, its origins, developments and values. He goes on, that the most unsworded act of British social policy in the 20th century has allowed and encouraged sentiments of altruism, reciprocity and social duty to express themselves, to be made explicit in identifiable patterns of behaviour by all social groups and classes. In other countries such as the United States, there is a commercial blood market, but giving money does not encourage a sense of social responsibility, whereas appealing to the shared values of a group does. That is very much what the Imam Hussein blood donation campaign seeks to do, by tying in a drive for donations with positive lessons on the altruistic actions of a respected religious figure. The campaign has grown in support over the first two years, with numbers last year in Edinburgh at 28, 18 of whom were new donors. The 2014 campaign is taking place on the 6th and the 8th of November, as we have heard, and to date has 40 people registered to donate. The Scottish Government has advised that the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service does not collect data on the number of donors by ethnic minority group. That data would perhaps place the campaign within a broader context and help to illustrate the need for a greater awareness about donation. However, the Muslims Give Blood campaign, which ran across the whole of the UK last year, gives a broader insight into the particular need for donations. It said, not everyone has the same blood type. Without having access to compatible blood types when you are injured, doctors will not be able to provide you with life-saving treatments, and they go on. Blood type is generally related to our ethnic origins. For example, 25 per cent of the South Asian communities are blood group B compared to only 9 per cent of Caucasians. That highlights the urgent need for blood donations from South Asian communities. The Imam Hussein blood donation campaign also highlights that Islam is a religion of mercy and caters for all the problems faced by humanity in speaking of the relationship between Islam and the altruistic act of donation. It highlights that the religion, and I am quoting again, acknowledges the needs of people. That gives concessions and dispensations wherever needed. Hence, it can be said that blood transfusion is lawful as a necessity. Through appealing to members of the community, the campaign, which has been successful in other parts of the UK since 2006, highlights that concern for fellow human beings, philanthropy and empathy are central to the Islamic religion, while also aiming to address a particular problem in the lack of a particular blood type. I wish the campaign well in its 2014 drive and hope that it goes from strength to strength in the future. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I also add my thanks to Jim Eadie for bringing this issue to the chamber this evening. I am sure that I will not be alone in saying that I was unfamiliar with the Imam Hussein until I examined his story and the reason why the blood donation campaign was launched in his name in 2006 to increase the number of regular blood donors from Muslim communities. This man, who, as we know, lived in the 7th century Middle East, was known for his generosity and tolerance to different races and social standing, and his martyrdom at the hands of the dictator Yazid is revered by Shia Muslims throughout the world. As someone with a medical background, I am all too familiar with the need for regular blood donors to come forward, particularly those who have a rare blood type such as AB negative, which is only held by less than 1 per cent of the UK population. When I first gave blood several decades ago, the restrictions on donation were relatively few, but over the years, as knowledge has grown, the list of exclusions has grown significantly. For instance, I had to stop being a donor when I went on to treatment for hypertension. As a result of recognition of the very long, indeed uncertain, incubation period for CJD, anyone who has received a blood transfusion in the past is now, I understand, banned from blood donation. Also, until three years ago and following an intensive campaign, game ends throughout the UK were prohibited from giving blood and there are still restrictions in place. It is, of course, extremely important that blood donation is carefully monitored because of the very serious complications that can occur with it, but it is also important that, as many people as possible, are recruited as donors because Scottish patients need 5,000 blood donations every week, and that need is despite the fact that some excellent blood substitutes are available to expand blood volume because they cannot totally replace whole blood in its derivatives. There are peak times when requirements are high and donations relatively low, such as over Christmas and the new year, and only last January parts of England and Wales came within three days of running out of a specific blood group, so efforts have to be maintained to keep up donations throughout the year. The Imam Hussein campaign, which runs throughout the Moheram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, began this year on the 24th of October and will conclude on the 23rd of this month. In place for the last eight years, its aim has been to encourage Muslims to play an active part in donating blood, and it is worth reminding ourselves that the religion of Islam is not against blood donations. Indeed, there is also nothing prohibiting Muslims from donating to non-Muslims as long as they are not fighting against Islam. Because Muslims who come from ethnic minority backgrounds often have rarer blood groups, the need to encourage them to give blood is all the more necessary. As Scotland does require 5,000 blood donations every week and is only 5 per cent of those eligible to donate do so, then the vast majority rely on a small minority for blood stocks. That is why a concerted effort must be made to reach out to as many groups, communities and individuals as possible. The Imam Hussein campaign fulfills a necessary purpose in exactly that. Jimmy D's motion understandably focuses on Edinburgh and the Lothians and highlights of blood donation sessions taking place here this Thursday and on Saturday. However, as part of a wider campaign in conjunction with Islamic Unity Society and the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, we have seen similar events in Glasgow and at a UK level in London, Birmingham and Manchester, as well as other major UK cities. I am not aware of the campaign spreading to my region of the northeast, but perhaps the minister of goodness contribution advised me on that. Presiding officer, by raising the crucial importance of giving blood, this debate will hopefully go some way to seeing a rise in the number of people within our Muslim communities making that contribution. As I said at the outset, Islam is not a tall against blood donations, and it says in the Quran, if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind. My thanks again to Jimmy D for securing the debate. Good evening and thank you very much, Presiding Officer. First, I thank Jimmy D for securing this debate this evening. Thank you very much, Jim, for this very important debate. Imam Hussein's blood donation in Scotland has had tremendous hope in raising the participation of blood donors within the Muslim communities in Scotland. The Imam Hussein blood donation campaign has been able to disperse various misconceptions that are assumed with some Muslim communities. Raising the Islamic approval of the act of blood donation is important and vital, and I have been one donor myself on a regular basis. The promotion of blood donation is vital in maintaining the standards of health in Scotland, and Scotland is privileged to have organisations as such, as one I have mentioned. This caters for specialist communities to raise awareness among communities of the need of blood donations, which is vital. In my constituency, there are various organisations which promote the importance of maintaining excellent well-being of Scottish public amongst ethnic minority communities. One of these active organisations includes the well funding in Glasgow. The well funding aim is to increase the involvement and awareness of the Scottish public in helping those less fortunate. Educating people who now can improve their health and change their lives for an overall betterment by creating awareness of various health conditions, including providing clean and safe drinking water, cancer, diabetes, overweight, leukemia, and all concerns that affect many people in the Asian community across Scotland. Another health concern is the spreading of hepatitis C, which affects the well-being of many Scots in the Asian community in Scotland. It is estimated that around 39,000 people across Scotland are infected with hepatitis C, according to hepatitis C trust. Raising awareness of hepatitis C is essential in maintaining the high standards that Scotland has for its citizens. People sometimes underestimate the value of donation of organs and in particular blood. The fact that we have this motion today actually highlights and indicates the importance. The Imamo san blood donation has highlighted something not only for us Scots but also the Muslim communities in Scotland. The Muslim community in Scotland needs to demonstrate their indication and their willingness to help and show some real interchange and dedication in this area. The Imamo san blood donation trust or rather the campaign for donation of blood is an important one and I personally am really grateful for them for making the effort to bring this to our attention not only in Scotland but also in the Scottish Parliament. I want to commend the champions, the organisations, the people who make the effort of making health a priority for us in Scotland today. I once again wish to thank Jim Eadie for bringing this motion to the Scottish Parliament today because it highlights the importance of working together and improving and campaigning for such valuable causes. Jim, not only do I thank you for bringing the motion to us today but also the Albaid Society in Edinburgh and I encourage them and wish them well not only in this campaign in Edinburgh but I hope that they will take it to Glasgow in which I would want to play a role with them as well and thank you for being with us this evening. Thank you very much and now call on James Dornan to be followed by Dr Richard Simpson. Thank you Presiding Officer. I want to join with my colleagues in congratulating Jim Eadie on bringing this debate to the chamber. I congratulate the work that is being done by the Edinburgh Aloe Bait Society in encouraging Muslim residents of Edinburgh and the Aloe Bait Institute to donate blood. I welcome those who are already mentioned by Jim Eadie to the chamber, particularly my friend Shabir Beg, who is sitting up the back there, and I say that the man who is saying blood donation campaign has already been mentioned to increase the number of regular blood donors from the Muslim community appears to have been already a great success, tying it to the memory and the work of the man who is saying seems to have worked. I was delighted to hear that Glasgow had begun to hold the nation sessions as well. Too often people who do small charitable acts don't see the bigger picture about what that half-hour of their lives has actually done and it has saved lives. I want to repeat a statistic that Mr Eadie used in his opening because I think it's crucial to the debate. Over the course of a year, a woman could save up to nine adult lives or 21 children's lives and a man could save up to 12 adult lives and 28 children's lives, but it's particularly touched by the statistic that three teaspoons of blood can save the life of a premature baby. My partner works with premature babies every day and it really brings home how, even from a distance, he can help some of these tiny little children survive. After all, as the campaign says, blood is a precious resource that can benefit others and save lives. That is an extremely powerful message. We need 5,000 blood donations every week in Scotland just to keep up with demand. As we know, blood is an extremely short shelf life, so it needs to be a constant stream of donations. Therefore, the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service, along with the regular donation schedules, run a project called Blood Donor 24. This is Scotland's emergency blood donor response team that made up a folk who have pledged to respond within 24 hours should need for the donation of their blood group arise. Shortages and blood types can arise for many reasons, as has already been mentioned by Jamede, from it being a bank holiday to a major incident or emergency. Of course, when it is an emergency, that is when it is easiest sometimes to get donors. Who can forget the queues of people stretching round the block from the Glasgow offices after the Cluth of Alts tragedy? So great was the response that the service had to ask people to delay donating for a couple of weeks as they had too much blood. Yet, despite us instinctively recognising how important blood is, how many lives can be saved each year by blood donations, it is still the case that has already been mentioned that only around 4 per cent of eligible blood donors donate, and that is something that we all have to work on. Another area of Blood Transfusion Service is working on is getting younger people to become donors. Recent research shows that only 46 per cent of 17-year-olds were even aware that they could give blood. It is crucial that we engage with young donors because the average age of a donor in Scotland is now over 40. I know that 20 per cent of new donors come from the Give Blood School Talks programme, which last year signed up 5,000 new volunteers. Their message is to celebrate your 17th birthday and celebrate saving a life. I think that this work is extremely important, and I will be contacting the service to see if there are other ways that we can engage young people to give blood, perhaps through working with youth groups and sports or art centres. The work of the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service is critical in the excellent blood donation service that we have here in Scotland. A service that will get even better when the work in the construction of the bespoke national centre is completed. National Centre will provide a flexible modern pharmaceutical industry standard environment for the services staff to continue to deliver a safe, efficient supply of blood components across Scotland. That will also provide an on-going contribution to a leading life science research and development industry. I congratulate the Imam Hussein Blood Donation campaign on the work that it is doing in getting more Muslims to donate blood, and the work of the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service to ensure that blood is kept safe and used efficiently. I look forward to working with the service to see how we can encourage more people to take part in this simple but life-saving act. I now call Dr Richard Simpson, after which we will go to the closing speech from the minister. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I want to add my congratulations to others to GMED for getting this debate. It is an important one in that it draws attention to the fact that, if groups out in the community actually get together to promote something, then it can be successful and it creates public awareness. It also allows us as parliamentarians to make that point in Parliament and hopefully have it picked up in the press. We will see in the next day or two whether that is picked up in the press or not. I hope that it is. The Alobat Society in Combination with Islamic Unity Society and the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service are, in running this amount of Hussain blood donation campaign, doing exactly that. They are promoting something that is hugely worthwhile, because it emphasises, as Malcolm Chisholm said, the ethical and moral background to our blood donation programme in this country. It is not a commercial event. It is an act of selfless volunteering. That being encouraged in schools and youth clubs, as James Donner said, is really vital that we actually massively encourage the next generation to donate blood. We have been hugely successful in this country since the Parliament was founded in increasing organ donation registration. We now have the highest level of that in any of the home nations. We should be doing the same in terms of the blood transfusion to promote it well beyond 4 or 5 per cent. I know that this organisation, the Blood Transfusion Service, with whom I had considerable dealings in the first Parliament at the time of the initial discussions on the Hepatitis C issue, is a highly ethical organisation that operates on the basis of research and evidence with patient safety at the core of its work. However, I think that the question of donation from LGBT is something that is of importance in terms of our discussions. I think that looking at the age factor is important. I used to be a donor. I am now over 70, so I am not allowed to donate, although, in fact, because of illness, I probably would not be allowed to or because of the medicines that I take, I would not be allowed to donate now. However, the question is whether the age restrictions that there are are actually something that needs to be under review. I would like to conclude, Deputy Presiding Officer, the short intervention by just referring to one or two things. One is the fact that, I think, over the last 10 or 15 years, the amount of blood that is wasted within the hospitals has been reduced very significantly. That is very important because it is not just the supply that is important but what happens at the other end. The work that is being done on that to reduce the need for blood is critically important. Part of that is also dealing with wasted blood during operation. I think that an area that we have not expanded sufficiently is people giving their own blood prior to operations. This is not always appropriate, but, nevertheless, I think that it is an area that is actually underdeveloped. The last point that I would like to make is that I think that we need to be sending a very clear message to employers that they have a responsibility in terms of their social responsibility to encourage their employees to take part in this. I know that many do already, but many more need to because we do need blood donation, particularly starting from now during the winter, and we need that blood donation to occur. I thank you for bringing in this debate. For educating us on this society, which I did not know about until you raised the motion, that has been extremely welcome. I have been glad to be able to contribute to this debate. I now call on the minister, Michael Matheson, to conclude the debate on behalf of the Government. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I, like others, offer my congratulations to Jamidea in securing time for this important and very worthwhile debate. I have listened with great interest to the contributions that have been made by all members this evening. I also want to take this opportunity to join the Parliament in congratulating the end brawl by society on the launch of the Eman Hussein blood donation campaign for 2014, which is the day of undertaking co-operation with the Islamic Unity Society and the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service. This is a very welcome initiative, particularly given the importance of ensuring that people of all backgrounds in Scotland are willing to donate blood to ensure that stocks are available when they are needed. Blood donation is one of the great acts of human compassion. For someone to take time out of their busy day to donate some of their own blood in order to help someone, they will never know and probably never meet. It is a remarkable act of generosity in itself. The amount of blood that is donated in Scotland is important, but so too is the type of blood that is being donated. We know that blood type is generally related to our ethnic origins, and the majority of Muslims in Scotland are ethnic minorities. It is therefore important that people from minority ethnic groups in Scotland donate to ensure that the right sort of blood is available when it is most needed. We know, too, that some people need blood transfusions for life, and some blood disorders are found predominantly in South Asian communities. Those people rely on regular supply of blood, and it is important that they receive the right type of blood that they require. Often rare blood groups are more common within certain minority ethnic groups, so it is important that we encourage people with rare blood types to donate as is necessary. That is why I am very much welcome to offer this particular campaign, because it seeks to promote the nation and to raise awareness about the issues in a segment of our society. Scotland is committed to promoting a multi-faith and multicultural society based on mutual trust, respect and understanding of one another. The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service has met those community representatives to set specific attendance days in order to ensure that the national arrangements are satisfactory and that they are well explained to them. The campaign is working hard to achieve the necessary change, diversity and positivity within the community, as well as promoting and encouraging integration. We must also acknowledge that there can be challenges in forming Scottish Muslims about blood donation, as there are different views across Islam about the acceptability of blood donation. It is not for us, as a Government or as an apartment, to dictate on those matters. We know that blood donation has been recommended and approved by Muslim scores, as not only permitted, but it is also being praised worthly. I hope that, as a result of this particular campaign, many Scottish Muslims will come to this particular view. I am also very happy to offer the Government's support to this campaign, and I have no doubt that it will produce a great deal of good. I hope that Scottish Muslims will be inspired by Imam Hussein's legacy and give blood for the sake of the wider community here in Scotland. I would also like to take this opportunity to us people from South Asia backgrounds to speak to their peers about organ donation and to get the full facts so that they can also make an informed decision about organ donation. Clearly, this particular initiative relates to Edinburgh and the Lothians area and is focused on Muslims, but I think that there is a lesson here for Scotland more generally and for other communities. Like Islam, I know that Sikhism and Hinduism all see blood donation as being a positive thing to contribute. Through the 2011 census, we know that Scotland is becoming an evermore ethnically and religiously diverse nation. I therefore hope that communities across Scotland, whether they be in Edinburgh or in general, will take part in this important act of charity in donating blood. It would be tremendous to see campaigns just like this one being replicated in different groups and in different communities right across Scotland. Donating blood, Presiding Officer, is simply a simple but amazing act. We need more people from different backgrounds to donate because our population is becoming more diverse. We particularly need, as Richard Simpson correctly highlighted, more young people in our donor base who will make a lifelong commitment to donating blood. New, committed and active donors are essential to safeguarding our future supplies of blood products. I urge everyone to give blood if they can, particularly those who have never donated blood, those who have not given blood for a while. It would be great if donors could encourage their friends and their families to have a go and reassure them that it is a very straightforward process. Blood donations are a vital resource to help to treat cancer and many other long-term conditions, but people who are involved in accidents and in maternity care require access to blood and blood products on a regular basis. Everything that we can do to promote blood donations is worthwhile, and I am pleased to be able to offer the support of the Scottish Government to the imam who is saying blood donation campaign 2014.