Leslie Sinclair, a 66-year-old father of two, had donated about 125 liters of blood for five decades before being excluded from his altruistic endeavors during a trip on Wednesday amid pressure for new donors, the Daily Mail reported. Sinclair, from Stirling in central Scotland, was asked to fill out a form asking if she was pregnant or had been pregnant for the past six months, prompting him to answer that the question did not apply to a man in the late 1960s. “I’m angry because I’m given blood since I’m 18 and I’m going to it regularly,” Sinclair told the report on Friday. “I’m very happy to do it without any problems.” Sinclair told an employee at the Albert Hall Clinic in Sterling that it was “impossible” for her to become pregnant, but she soon learned that she had to answer the question in order to donate blood. Now he has no plans to return to the donation center. “I told them it was stupid and that if I had to leave, I would not return,” Sinclair said. “And that was it, I got on my bike and I left on the bike.” Sinclair said he was angry that “vulnerable people”, including children, were in desperate need of donations. “But they were denied my blood because of the obligation to answer a question that could not be answered,” Sinclair told the Daily Mail. The refusal came amid a push by the UK National Health Service last week to attract more than a million blood donors in the next five years following the decline during the pandemic, according to the report. Scotland’s National Blood Transfusion Service has also announced plans to recruit 16,000 new blood donors next year, but anyone considering donating blood will be asked if they are pregnant to “promote integration”, the Daily Mail reported. “There is always a form to fill out and that’s okay – they tend to ask about medical conditions or diseases – and obviously that’s because the blood has to be safe,” Sinclair said. But the new question threw Sinclair in a noose, as did his wife, he said. “He just can’t figure it out either,” said the retired driver of an engineering firm. Anyone born in Scotland must wait six months before donating blood. According to the report, officials from Scotland’s National Blood Transfusion Service said all donors were now being asked if they were pregnant as part of a “promotion task”. “We appreciate the support of each of our donor communities and thank Mr Sinclair for his commitment over the years,” SNBTS Director Marc Turner told the Daily Mail. “While pregnancy is a relevant question only for those whose biological sex or gender defined at birth is female, the gender attributed at birth is not always visually clear to staff,” Turner said. Noting the “changes in society,” Turner said the agency now asks all potential donors the same questions during appointments, including if she is pregnant.
