The American Red Cross has declared an emergency blood shortage, saying patients are at risk of not getting lifesaving transfusions.
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Donors are needed now more than ever as the Red Cross faces a national emergency shortage, with the number of donors at a 20-year low. Medical director Dr. Eric Gehrie says the Red Cross has experienced a loss of 300,000 donors since the COVID-19 pandemic alone.
“It means that hospitals will order a certain number of units of blood, and those orders are not being filled fully,” he said. “So hospital blood banks are low on blood.”
Gehrie says the Red Cross supplies about 40% of the nation’s blood supply. He says emptier shelves could force hospitals to make excruciating decisions about which patients are prioritized for blood.
“Doctors have to make choices about which patients can receive a transfusion in a given day,” he says. “Surgeries like heart can be delayed waiting for the available blood to be collected and sent to the hospital.”
Both the USA and Canada have made blood donation require more effort.
Pre-pandemic you could simply walk into one of the many convenient blood donation center and walk out inside an hour having done all the test/paperwork and whole blood donation. Not only have they closed many donation locations, but also require you to schedule a donation.
Further, some are getting more picky about what donations they accept. Canadian Blood Services stopped accepting American blood donors in 2020 (temporarily?). They’ve since closed the donation location (but are in the process of building a new one). Finally, they aren’t doing whole blood donations anymore and only taking plasma which requires apheresis blood donation. This mean instead of 25 min or so bleeding, from one arm, its 1.5 to 2 hours of having two tubes hooked up, one to each arm, and them shoving your non-plasma blood back into you.
American Red Cross is requiring scheduled times the last time I checked. I was turned away at the door because of scheduling requirements on two different occasions and don’t think I’ll try for a third.
There was a report in … I dunno, the early 2000’s, that the Australian Red Cross was running extremely low on blood. But when some paper (maybe the Sydney Morning Herald?) investigated, they found that the blood supply itself was fine; what was running low were the igg or igf factors they were removing from the blood and selling to corporations for massive profits. :/
I’m in central Ohio. The regular place I used to go to donate regularly cancels my appointments due to staffing issues. I’ve taken to going to pop-up areas because those don’t cancel appointments. They only do whole blood and power red.
Yes, my understanding is that you have to schedule an appointment, although you can usually schedule for the next day.
Pop-ups doing whole blood, got it. As they get more desperate, I expect we’ll see more of these. And central Ohio has a lot of hospitals.
They just changed the rules recently and made me eligible to donate for the first time in my life. It’s been more complicated than I had anticipated to actually donate! I gather it wasn’t always like this? I just want to walk into a hospital or something and take a half hour nap while they suck me dry.
