Arkansas blood banks say they’re mostly or fully recovered from the donation interruptions wrought by this season’s wintry weather, thanks in part to catch-up drives staged after rapid thawing of snow and ice.
Representatives from Community Blood Center of the Ozarks, Arkansas Blood Institute and the AmericanRed Cross’ blood region for Arkansas said last week they knew of no surgeries that had to be canceled or postponed for lack of blood as a result of the successive storms.
The last of a series of storms dumped roughly 2 feet of snow on parts of the state’s northwest corner Feb. 9.
“We did dip below a oneday supply,” said Del Holloway, executive director of theArkansas Blood Institute of Fort Smith and Hot Springs, which serves 13 hospitals in western Arkansas and four in Oklahoma.
In the first two weeks of February, his center was forced to cancel 14 drives estimated to yield 537 units of blood, because it couldn’t get to the donors or vice versa. It typically needs to collect 75-100 units a day year-round to meet the demand. One standard unit equals approximately a pint of whole blood.
Arkansas Blood Institute, which normally likes to have a three-day blood supply in reserve at all times, caught up on donations three to four days after the most recent snowstorm.
“After we got the first semiday of melt, we got a little bit of progress,” Holloway said, adding that a weekend drive started off slow but ended up a big success.
“We were open on Super Bowl Sunday, when we actually had a great turnout,” he said of a Feb. 6 Fort Smith drive, held from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. so football fans could leave in time for kickoff.
The 30 units collected that day in Fort Smith were good for an impromptu weekend drive, he said. It easily bested the Hot Springs sister office’s Super Bowl drive, which drew about 10 donors.
In all, the blood institute’s Arkansas service area covers Crawford, Franklin, Garland, Hot Spring, Johnson, Logan, Montgomery, Polk, Sebastian and Scott counties, and parts of Clark, Pike and Yell counties.
Community Blood Center of the Ozarks saw its greatest plummets in donations beginning the week of Jan. 31, said Don Thomson, its executive director.
That was a two-week period when its Arkansas service area saw two major winter storms one after the other.
“We lost about 80 percent of our donations for that week, and 40 percent for the next week,” said Thomson, whose agency serves a three-state area covering Washington, Benton, Carroll and Madison counties; 33 counties in southwest Missouri; and three in Kansas.
But now, Community Blood Center has restored its supply, he said, adding they were lucky that all the hospitals had enough blood.
“I don’t know of any surgical procedures that were canceled for a lack of blood during this time,” he said.
“We’re indebted to the donors - that’s what makes this work,” Thomson said. “We’re the ultimate recycler.”
Like the others, the American Red Cross felt the storms’ effects, but its national backup system was also affected as at least 30 states were pummeled by inclement weather this season.
The Red Cross’ Greater Ozarks-Arkansas Blood Region was in the heart of it all. Its coverage area includes the vast majority of Arkansas counties and southwestern Missouri.
Nationally, the Red Cross estimates it wasn’t able to collect 33,000 planned donations since January, a spokesman said. In Arkansas, that number was about 1,800.
“We were dealing with storms that are unprecedented,” said the Arkansas blood region’s spokesman, Alan Gibson. “It’s unusual to have back-to-back-to-back storms. With the breadth of those storms, everybody was struggling for blood supply.”
There were “days and days” where it just wasn’t safe for Red Cross workers or donors to get out of the house, he said, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t patients hospitalized all over the state, some needing blood products.
“That need doesn’t take a snow day,” he said.
In cases where donor appointments were canceled because of weather, they tried to reschedule them for later to catch up.
“We’ve seen a good response, and things have returned to a more normal level,” Gibson said. “We’re not fully recovered, but we’ve made a lot of progress.” It’s not like blood banks can stockpile for storms months in advance, he said.
“The problem with blood is, it’s perishable. It has a short shelf life and it’s the blood that’s on hand at any given time that saves lives,” he said. “And it’s the right type as well.”
According to the American Red Cross website, blood’s perishability means new donations are needed daily.
At blood drives donorstypically give whole blood, which can be separated later into components such as plasma, red blood cells or platelets and transfused for various uses by patients suffering illnesses or trauma.
Platelets must be used within five days of donation, while red blood cells may be refrigerated for no more than 42 days. (Because it’s expensive, only a small portion of red blood cells are frozen, but this gives them a shelf life of up to 10 years).
Plasma is typically frozen and must be used within one year.
Regulations in this country allow people to donate whole blood only once during a 56-day period, according to the Red Cross. Nationally, more than 38,000 donations are needed each day to meet demand.
Another thing that hampers blood banks, is that less than 38 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood.
One type of blood that’s almost always in high demand is O-negative, blood bank officials said.
For much of last week, Community Blood Center of the Ozarks had an alert on its website for this type of blood.
That’s because O-negative is considered a “universal donor” blood type.
“O-negative can be transfused to anyone in an emergency, until the emergency room can ‘type’ someone,” the Red Cross’ Gibson said. “All hospitals want to keep O-negative at the ready for traumas. It’s always in short supply.”
The blood institute’s Holloway added that, when there’s time to test someone’s type, it is preferable to give them their own blood type rather than O-negative. People who normally have O-negative blood cannot receive any other kind, as they are not among those who are “universal recipients.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 17 on 02/27/2011