The American Red Cross said on Monday that they were worried about a lack of blood. The American Red Cross says it is getting the fewest gifts it has seen in 20 years.
The problem is that hospitals need whole blood, red blood cells, plasma, and platelets more quickly than they can get them from donors. About 40% of the blood donations in the country go to the Red Cross. Because of this emergency shortage, they’ve had to send blood to the most urgent cases, which means that some hospitals can’t get donations.
A medical head at the American Red Cross named Dr. Eric Gehrie said that if hospitals don’t have enough blood, patients who need transfusions might have to wait longer for their surgeries or care because there won’t be enough blood available.
“There is more need for blood at hospitals than we are able to provide at current donation levels and this is an issue that is really … a long-term problem,” said Dr. Gehrie. Then he said, “To put those numbers in perspective, we need an extra 8,000 donations every week in January to meet the hospital’s needs right now.” He said that 300,000 fewer donors have come forward since the plague began.
According to the Red Cross, things have changed since most of their blood supplies used to come from businesses or schools that held blood drives. But things have changed a lot since the pandemic. Those kinds of blood drives aren’t as common now, so they are really struggling to find volunteers.
A lot of people aren’t able to give blood, and the American Red Cross was even experiencing a “national blood crisis” in January 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic because so many people couldn’t donate.
Aside from that, Dr. Geherie also talked about how some donors are turned away because of their iron levels or other issues, which can stop them from giving blood as planned.
The American Red Cross says that only 3.3% of people, or 6.8 million Americans, give blood every year.
In order to find new donors that may not have been reached before, public health experts are looking into ways to make blood giving more open to everyone.
