Once you have signed in and you have read the obligatory disclosure and informational sheets, you are taken to a closet sized interview room where you wait for a nurse to interview you and to check your basic health condition.

For starters a nurse will take vital information such as your blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature and a small finger prick of blood.

They use a machine to check your blood pressure with but for some reason, they check your pulse rate manually even though the machine tells them what your pulse rate is.  My blood pressure is usually in the normal range of 130/70 +/- normal variances with a heart beat of 60 to 65.

Funny thing though, my temperature frequently measures in the 96.8 range instead of the usual 98.6.  I am told this is a normal variance.

The small sample of blood they take from the finger prick, is used to measure for red cell content versus plasma (clear stuff) and the sample is evaluated whether your ratio of red to clear is sufficient for giving blood or not.

Once you are finished with the interview and have answered the requisite health questions, you are set to go into the next room.  You get up and out of the interview room and then enter a large room with several lounge chairs where nurses are standing by to withdraw your blood