National Welsh treasure and recent cancer victim Rhod Gilbert is calling on all 17 to 30 years olds to support the Welsh Blood Services’ ‘Chilled Out Lifesaver’ campaign in a bid to to recruit 4,000 volunteer donors to its Welsh Bone Marrow Donor Registry over the next 12 months.

The ‘Chilled-Out Lifesaver’ campaign is looking to recruit 4,000 new volunteers to join the Welsh Bone Marrow Donor Registry this year.

Rhod is currently recovering from head and neck cancer, having received radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment at the Velindre Cancer Centre.

Speaking of the campaign, the 54-year-old said, “Velindre has been a big part of my life.

“ I’ve been a patron for the past 10 years and thought that being involved with Velindre fundraising would have given me lifelong immunity.

“But the hard fact is that one in two of us will get cancer at some point during our lifetime, so I urge everyone to do whatever they can, whenever they can, to help.

“Joining the Welsh Bone Marrow Donor Registry is giving someone, somewhere in the world who has blood cancer, a chance to make a full recovery and spend more precious time with their friends and loved ones.”

Annually, over 50,000 patients across the globe hope to find a suitable bone marrow match from an unrelated donor, with bone marrow donor registries being searched all over the world on a daily basis by clinicians looking for suitable donor matches for their blood cancer patients.

Sadly, three out of ten patients will not find a suitable donor and if the patient is from a black, Asian or of a mixed ethnicity background, finding a matching donor can be as low as 30 per cent.

If you are aged between 17 and 30 and would like to find out more about the Bone Marrow Donor Registry, visit http://welshblood.org.uk to start your journey in the fight against blood cancer.