Giving Blood In A World Of COVID-19: Long Island Man Tells Story

HICKSVILLE, NY — Arjun Prasad Mainali could have remained in relative seclusion — avoiding all contact with any kind of a medical facility at all, unless in an emergency — during the COVID-19 pandemic. He did exactly the opposite. The 52-year-old Hicksville resident rolled up his sleeve 22 times to donate his blood and platelets, spending 124 hours at various blood centers over the last eight months.

“Within a couple of hours the blood can go to someone,” said Mainali, who after putting in half a day at the insurance company he works for drove to New York Blood Center in Melville on Tuesday and willingly offered his arm for four hours for the 22nd time since April. “This is a very happy thing for me.”

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, Mainali said that he felt the need more than ever to give his blood. To him, it was a choice he made 33 years ago about respecting life. Mainali, who is from Nepal, began donating blood at 19 years old and he has left that vital part of himself in six continents and 17 countries — from Ireland to Haiti, and then on to Rwanda — all at his own expense.

Mainali’s 22-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son have his blood running through their veins, but he also considers the recipients of his blood and platelets family as well, and he is proud.

“I have a family around the world,” said Mainali, who immigrated to the U.S. in 2000, of his trips abroad to make donations, recalling one time he travelled to the United Kingdom for a blood donation and then flew back within a day.

As a regular donor — a frequent flyer, so to speak — Mainali started receiving email notifications that blood supplies were running low. With COVID-19 restrictions in place, he explained, many pre-scheduled blood donation programs were canceled, and with that, the blood supply decreased, affecting patient accessibility to blood at a time when there was an increased need for it. With that thought in mind, it was hard for Mainali to sit back and watch without continuing what he considers his work in both donating blood and motivating others to make donations themselves.

“It was a scary time,” Mainali said, recalling sheltering inside his home with his family.

Mainali, who grew up in a small village outside Kathmandu, Nepal, did not realize a person could donate their blood to save another’s life until he attended college as a teenager. It was in those days that he read a book with several stories, but one stood out and it was called “The Blood Donor,” and it told the story of a man from Detroit, MI who had a rare blood type who “donated many times,” Mainali said.

That was 1986.

But he did not donate blood until the following year in 1987. Since then, Mainali has given blood 193 times. He estimates that he has donated 24 gallons of blood and platelets, which is enough to save 582 lives and he has no plans of stopping. And his blood and platelets donations do not seem to affect his hemoglobin count — no anemia from blood loss there.

“I am healthy,” he said.

Mainali says that he watches what he eats and drinks to remain healthy. He starts off the day with lemon water, stays hydrated throughout the day by drinking about a gallon of regular water, and he eats a lot of fruit. He stays away from any food that is fried, contains sugar and cheese; instead he sticks to fresh home-cooked meals with provisions like rice and lentils.

On April 24, he journeyed to the American Red Cross in Farmington, CT, and gave his first donation of blood during the pandemic. He has been making donations of both his blood and platelets anywhere from two-t0-four times per month since then.

“For the first 10 days after April 24, my wife put me in quarantine because she was scared,” Mainali said, referencing the time he spent separated from his family in one room by himself. After the 10 days was up, and Mainali still showed no symptoms, he came out of quarantine. He was eventually able to convince his wife, Tara, that donating blood does not transmit COVID-19, he said.

“She loves me; she was just scared for our family,” said Mainali.

After his first donation, he spread the word over social media by posting a photograph of himself to show potential donors that blood donation is conducted in a safe environment — masks, social distancing and added safety precautions such as the use of personal protection equipment by staff — to guard against the spread of COVID-19.

Mainali also penned an email to organizations that might be able to arrange mass donation drives, and over the summer, the Overseas Nepalese Unity Forum rallied to his cause, as well as another eight Nepalese organizations, gathering 600 donations.

Mainali did not forget his home country’s struggle with COVID-19 either. Throughout the pandemic he has donated thousands of Nepali Rupees to aid in blood collection, to support unemployed workers, and distribute food. He also gave money to set up an essay contest for schoolchildren in Jajarkot, Nepal under the theme: “I will donate blood.”

“I motivate people,” he said.

Whether he is donating or raising awareness, Mainali’s goal has always been clear. He wants to save lives by giving something of himself. And it’s not something that he needs direct proof of. While he has never met anyone specifically who has received his blood, he knows that they are out there alive.

“I am sure that many people have survived,” he said.