Hinton in my heart

So, before moving to Calgary, Zane and I lived in Hinton, Alberta. While living in Hinton I worked as a reporter just like April O'Neil. During this period of my life I had the pleasure of meeting some wonderful people including Robin Garreck. Robin now owns her own newspaper (which is pretty amazing) and she recently wrote an article about how they are shutting down the blood donor clinic in Hinton.
Please take a minute and check out the great article and overall awesome publication at http://hintonvoice.com/keep-the-pin-take-the-blood-p2240-519.htm.
A lot of small towns have had this happen to them and honestly I'm not always 100% sure why they decide to shut them down but I now it affects a lot of people. First of all its very discouraging when you want to do something so heroic like donating blood and them someone tells you, you can't. Secondly, a vampire like me does not like to hear about clinics shutting down. As I've mentioned before I've had more than 2,000 blood transfusions in my life and will surely need many more. If it wasn't for the kind hearts of people like Robin I would not be here.

Since we are on the topic of blood and blood donation, I would like to draw your attention to the for profit blood donations clinics that are being debated as we speak.
As a frequent user of Plasma products I am uncomfortable with the thought of people being paid for donations. Don't get me wrong I think that people who donate blood are wonderful and certainly deserve praise. The reason I am uncomfortable with it is because I was always told that statistically blood is safer from volunteer donors as oppose to paid donors.
My only concern is the safety of the blood. We certainly do not need another tainted blood scandal.