A first…

I have been a blood donor for many years in the Netherlands, UK and Belgium, but this is the first time I am donating blood plasma.
In this procedure the machine next to me collects the blood I am donating, centrifuges it, collects the plasma and then returns the blood cells to my vein. The plasma is used to make medication often for autoimmune diseases and blood clotting disorders. As a donor you also recover more quickly as you only need to replace the proteins of the plasma and not all the blood cells as you would in a normal blood donation.