The staff were pretty kind all around, facility was clean.
The dystopian aspect was how many people I saw denied, because they had donated yesterday. You can give twice a week, but have to wait a day in between. I saw at least four or five people get turned away, and they were all pretty upset. The line was extremely long - there are tons of people desperate enough to wait in line for hours to go through the painful process of having their blood sapped out.
I also got a preloaded card as my payment, which has a ton of fees associated with it - I’ll get charged if I use it at an atm or check the balance. I know these cash cards are often also used to pay people who work at like McDonald’s - it just seems like so much of the US is designed to nickel and dime the shit out of the poor.
It’s wild this is a paid thing in the US. As far as I know, in Canada, you can only donate for free. Blood, plasma, sperm, doesn’t matter. Can’t be paid for surrogacy either.
Yeah, but the snacks are great. But I miss the pre-covid era of soup and Cookies by George.
Honestly, in the US at least, I’m annoyed that you can’t be paid for regular whole blood donation. I could go donate blood for free, get in a car accident on the way home, need a transfusion, and be billed thousands of dollars for the privilege. That “putting a price on medicine is unethical” only applies to donors apparently.