Clark County’s hospitals need your blood, and soon.
After a cold and icy Thanksgiving week, where people either stayed indoors or headed out of town, the Puget Sound Blood Center fell to a critically low level of blood supply.
The supply is so low that an official at Vancouver’s blood bank hasn’t seen such a shortage in five years.
The blood bank on Vancouver Mall Drive received less than half the number of units of blood it normally receives in a given week, said Jeff Carrick, area manager for the Southwest Washington branch of the Puget Sound Blood Center.
“If it’s the inclement weather, we’re not going to see the donors we usually see,” Carrick said. “When you combine it with the time of the year when you normally see blood donations go down,” it has reached a critically low level.
Carrick called the shortage “nerve-racking,” where officials at blood banks throughout Western Washington have reported having less than a two-day supply of blood donations, specifically with the O, A and B blood groups, or the less common blood types. A four-day supply is considered optimal, Carrick said.
The good news is that the shortage hasn’t affected area hospitals yet. A spokesman at Southwest Washington Medical Center said all the hospital’s orders for blood were filled and that there hasn’t been an impact on surgeries.
Ditto at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center, a spokesman there said.
That’s because the blood bank is still filling all the orders, Carrick said, but officials are concerned about what will happen when they run out of their inventory.
“Could there ever be a situation where hospitals might see orders not filled? I guess it’s possible,” he said. “Has that ever happened? Not to my knowledge.”
Asked what would happen with that scenario, Carrick said he was optimistic the numbers would turn around.
“If people get the message, I think it’s just the altruistic side of our donors, they will help,” he said. “They will come out and they will respond.”
900 a day needed
According to the Puget Sound Blood Center, it takes more than 900 donor registrations every day to maintain an operational blood supply in Western Washington. Blood banks from Bellingham to Olympia to Vancouver ferry their blood donations to the same lab in Renton for distributing to hospitals, and all need donations.
To donate blood locally, call the Blood Center at 1-800-398-7888 to make an appointment. Walk-ins also are welcome at Vancouver’s donor center, 9320 N.E. Vancouver Mall Drive, Suite 100.
Several blood drives are also scheduled for the next few days. Among them are a blood drive at Riverview Center, 17205 S.E. Mill Plain Blvd., from 1:30 to 4 p.m. today and another one at Vancouver Clinic Salmon Creek, 2525 N.E. 139th St., from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday.
For more blood drives, visit http://www.psbc.org and click on “blood and tissue services.”
Laura McVicker: 360-735-4516 or laura.mcvicker@columbian.com.
