This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 4, 2011 - With the stormy weather behind them, area collectors of blood for human transfusions are keeping their fingers crossed that donors will start showing up in large numbers again to replenish low supplies.
"We haven't seen anything like this in 10 years," says Laurie Nehring, communications director for blood services at the local Red Cross, 4050 Lindell Boulevard. She was referring to the number of blood drive cancellations resulting from the snow and ice storm that rolled through the St. Louis region this week.
She says the cancellations meant that more than 1,700 pints of blood were not collected because of the weather or the donors' inability to travel. By Thursday, the number of canceled drives had slowed to four. Nationally, Nehring says the Red Cross has lost almost 23,000 pints.
She says the local Red Cross usually sponsors about 20 blood drives a day in Missouri and in the southern half of Illinois.
"We try to collect about 800 to 900 pints a day. Usually we can rely on getting blood from other regions when we run low since we are a national organization. But what we are running into now is that we have a snow storm blanketing a large part of the U.S. and it's affecting blood drives nationally. That's why we're in a bind, and we are barely able to keep up with the demand."
Still, she says the agency doesn't expect to experience a shortage critical enough to force hospitals to cancel elective surgeries until the blood supply is replenished. The hope now, she says, is that as the weather improves, people will go out and donate blood.
Similar concerns and hopes are coming from the area's top private supplier of blood, Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center in Crestwood.
"We usually have an 11-day supply of blood," says Patrick Fenton, director of operations for Mississippi Valley. "We're down to four days right now. This has never happened, a real first for us. The weather certainly is having an impact, but we hope to rebound as the weather improves."
Mississippi Valley is among about 100 organizations nationally that supply blood for transfusions. No single group, not even the Red Cross, can meet the demand. Fenton says his organization collects about 65,000 pints a year through blood drives in schools, businesses and churches. The amount collected, he says, is slightly above average for most private organizations. Aside from the Red Cross and Mississippi Valley, St. John's Mercy also collects blood, mainly for use at the hospital. Mississippi Valley supplies several area hospitals, including SSM hospitals and about a half dozen hospitals in southern Illinois.
"Blood is essentially medicine," says Fenton, "the only kind that can't be manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. What we do is furnish a safe product to hospitals, which are looking for the best at the lowest price that they can get."
He makes a distinction between the uses of blood collected by Mississippi Valley and plasma collected by the Interstate Blood Bank in St. Louis. Unlike Mississippi Valley and the Red Cross, the Interstate Blood Bank pays donors. But its product can only be used for limited purposes, such as research, and can't be used for human transfusions, Fenton says.
"On an average day, we probably get three or four calls asking if we will buy blood. The calls are probably a reflection of the economy. People don't have money."
He says his company refers callers to the Interstate Blood Bank.
