North Carolina hospitals get back to normal, raising concerns about the blood supply
As hospitals shift their focus from COVID-19 and resume normal operations, there’s renewed concern that the region’s blood supply will run short.
The arrival of coronavirus caused a sharp drop in blood donations this winter, as businesses, schools and other organizations canceled blood drives. At the same time, the demand for blood fell as hospitals cut back on non-urgent surgeries and other procedures to preserve supplies, staff and hospital beds for an expected surge in COVID-19 patients.
Now as hospitals again offer a full range of procedures, the demand for blood has increased but the number of blood drives has not. Those canceled blood drives continue to be a drag on supply even as hospital demand for blood products has grown by 30% since early April, said Maya Franklin, regional spokeswoman for the Red Cross.
“The American Red Cross has an urgent need for blood donations to prevent another blood shortage,” Franklin wrote in an email. “There is no known end date in this fight against coronavirus, and the Red Cross urgently needs the help of donors and blood drive hosts to ensure blood products are readily available for patients.”
The trend worries Dr. Nick Bandarenko, who oversees the blood supply at Duke University Hospital in Durham, which gets more than 90% of its whole red blood from the Red Cross.
Before the pandemic, Duke University Hospital kept a 10-day supply of blood on its shelves, Bandarenko said. Now it’s down to about three days, and the Red Cross has told Duke to prepare for a 25% cut in its daily allotment.
Duke University Hospital uses about 120 units of whole blood a day, enough to provide transfusions to about 60 patients on average. Bandarenko said Duke hasn’t had to postpone any procedures because of a lack of blood, but the hospital must communicate with the Red Cross daily to make sure it will have enough on hand for the following day.
“There is the possibility that if somebody bleeds a lot more than expected and there’s a shortfall that we might have to delay a case,” he said. “If we can increase the supply, it will help enormously.”
Bandarenko said Duke especially needs donations from African-Americans whose blood is more likely to be compatible for patients with sickle cell disease, a blood disorder most common among African-Americans, because of antibodies their blood may contain.
New criteria for donations
In April, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration responded to the drop in donations by relaxing some of the restrictions on who could donate and when. For example, where the FDA once recommended someone be barred from donating for a year after getting a tattoo or piercing or visiting a country where malaria is present, it now says a three-month deferral is adequate.
The Red Cross began applying the new criteria on Monday.
Not everyone is feeling the pinch of reduced blood donations. The Blood Connection, which aims to collect about 700 donations a day in the Carolinas, has recently seen an uptick in donors since it began offering a free COVID-19 antibody test when someone donates, according to spokeswoman Allie Van Dyke.
“Our blood supply is stable, and we have been able to keep up with demand,” Van Dyke wrote in an email.
The Blood Connection adopted the FDA’s new eligibility criteria on June 5, she said.
For more information about donating blood or to find a blood drive, go to www.redcrossblood.org/ or thebloodconnection.org/.
The Blood Connection will hold a drive June 22 in conjunction with UNC Rex Hospital at the Rex Wellness Centers in Cary and Wakefield from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and in Garner and Knightdale from 3 to 7 p.m. To make an appointment, go to thebloodconnection.org/ and click on “find a drive near you.”
This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 1:47 PM.
