Inova Blood Donor Services has issued a call for eligible blood donors to visit their local blood center or mobile blood drive to donate blood and/or platelets as soon as possible. Donors may schedule an appointment, or find a blood drive or donor center in proximity by visiting www.inova.org/donateblood or calling 1-866-BLOODSAVES (866-256-6372).
“The inventory of blood at Inova has been severely impacted by a lower than normal blood donor participation rate attributable to an unseasonably mild early spring coupled with summer activities and vacations,” according to Terri Craddock, Director, Inova Blood Donor Services. “This has lead to critically low inventory levels of blood and platelets, leaving hospitals vulnerable in response to emergency patients as well as challenged in meeting in- or out-patient procedures requiring the use of blood and blood products.”
Everyday Inova must collect approximately 250 units to keep up with demand, yet collections have slipped to between 150-200 units daily. All blood types are needed—but especially O positive, O negative, B negative and A negative—in order to meet patient demand this summer.
“Blood testing can take 24-48 hours before it is available to patients,” according to Craddock. “I encourage the public to access www.inova.org/donateblood or call 1-866-BLOODSAVES without dely.”
Donnmaria Killinger
1:27 pm on Thursday, July 5, 2012
Folks need to be educated at an early age about the importance of becoming an emergency blood donor. High schools and churches should consider scheduling a blood mobile(s) on their sites after students or congregation members questions, fears (needle, pain, takes long time - it doesn't) about donating blood have been addressed. Let people know their donated pint of blood could be the pint which saves a family members' life, a classmate or church member's life or even their
own life. 8 weeks later they should donate again. They will never regret their decision. Heart patients and newborns somewhere will be forever grateful for the gift of life.
Irishreet
6:34 pm on Thursday, July 5, 2012
Lyme disease is infiltrating the blood supply and Loudoun County is the epicenter of the Lyme epidemic on the Northeast Coast. The CDC has finally hired a firm to try to come up with a test that finds this horrible disease, since no reliable test now exists. The infection, Babesia, is one of many co-infections resulting from a tick bite. Since there's no accurate test, anyone who's been bitten by a tick, thinks they might be sick, or is unable to find help in the County because of negative tests (which only find, at best, 50% of those suffering) should not give blood, stockpile their own blood or be an organ donor. I know, because I have chronic Lyme and was told to donate blood because of a high red blood cell count. I didn't, because it didn't make sense. We have to move this County into treating this like the epidemic it is, find out just how many residents have Lyme and push for an accurate test so that people receiving transfusions do not contact this scourge, a cousin of the spirochete Syphilis. Inova Blood needs to push hard for this, because there are many CDC documented cases of Lyme transmission through transfusion. This season we've had a bumper crop of ticks due to hot and wet weather, and the nymphs, small and hard to find, are currently developing and contain more toxin that a large tick. This is a serious issue and needs to be addressed quickly by the Board of Supervisors and Medical community...NOW!