METUCHEN — Deborah Chalfin started donating platelets at the New Brunswick Affiliated Hospitals (NBAH) in 1998, in support of a friend who was having a bone marrow transplant at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.
She and the hospital staff recently celebrated a milestone: Chalfin made her 100th donation to the NBAH.
“It’s an easy and convenient process that I wish more people would be involved in,” Chalfin said.
Chalfin became a regular blood donor in 1973 while she was a student at Wesleyan University. Blood donation was a practice inspired by and shared with her mother, Inge Adler.
Chalfin visits Robert Wood Johnson once a month to donate platelets.
“She schedules her next appointment before she leaves so she’s already on the books, and when there is an emergency, Debbie is always accommodating,” said Sally Wells, director of the NBAH. “Donors like her are rare, especially when they have to sit at a machine for an hour and a half to two hours.”
Now Chalfin encourages her son, Benjamin, who currently attends Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, to carry on the family tradition of giving. He has donated blood many times at the NBAH.
One unit of blood can save up to three lives. Platelet donations ultimately help cancer, bone marrow and other patients undergoing treatment.
To learn more about the NBAH or to donate, visit the website at www.newbrunswickblood.org or call 732-235- 8100.