Blood donors are needed now more than ever as the Red Cross is facing an emergency shortage.

The American Red Cross has declared an emergency blood shortage, saying patients are at risk of not getting lifesaving transfusions.

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Donors are needed now more than ever as the Red Cross faces a national emergency shortage, with the number of donors at a 20-year low. Medical director Dr. Eric Gehrie says the Red Cross has experienced a loss of 300,000 donors since the COVID-19 pandemic alone.

“It means that hospitals will order a certain number of units of blood, and those orders are not being filled fully,” he said. “So hospital blood banks are low on blood.”

Gehrie says the Red Cross supplies about 40% of the nation’s blood supply. He says emptier shelves could force hospitals to make excruciating decisions about which patients are prioritized for blood.

“Doctors have to make choices about which patients can receive a transfusion in a given day,” he says. “Surgeries like heart can be delayed waiting for the available blood to be collected and sent to the hospital.”

  • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
    71·
    11 months ago

    I donated blood once a couple of years ago. Afterwards, they called me several times a week for like a year. They still call me like once a month. I can’t get them to stop. They have called me hundreds of times. I’ll never donate again.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      11 months ago

      I can’t get them to stop

      What I did was call back and get a real human.

      I explained all the automated calls theyre doing was just making me not want to donate. And that since they come from different numbers I can’t just block them.

      So I said the soonest I’ll ever donate to their company was a year after my last phone call.

      It’s been like 6-9 months and I haven’t gotten a single phone call.

      Because these companies are literal vampires and all they care about is blood.

      Not sure if the calls are gonna start again or not.