Weather Contributes To Critical Blood Shortage

The poor weather over the last few days has contributed to another critical blood shortage.

“We have lost just over 1200 units in the last week,” said Chelsea Tibbetts with the Community Blood Center. “Just to put that in perspective, that’s almost three times what we need to collect each day to meet the demands of our hospitals. Taking that sort of hit really does decrease our inventory. Our inventory is what we need to be supplied if something were to happen and we had any sort of situation where a hospital needed a lot of blood and quickly.”

That could be anything from a mass casualty event to a truly life threatening situation with a single individual.

“People need blood every day,” said Tibbetts. “Sometimes that person might need one unit. We had an individual in one of our local hospitals need over 90 units for just one incident. It really can vary and when you put that in perspective, that kind of large deficit in what we collect really does impact what we have available for these hospitals.”

Anywhere they can find sleeves rolled up, they’ll come, at this point.

“We’re urging the community in any way that they can, to help,” said Tibbetts. “That can be hosting a blood drive in their area. We’re happy to go to community centers, to churches, to places of business and to schools to host blood drives. If they can come, bring their friends, bring their family to donate, all of that helps us replenish this blood supply.”

All types are needed, but O Negative, the universal blood type, is of the most use, because it can be given to anyone.