Paul McKinney, IBTS director of donor services and logistics, said issuing an amber alert would have an “an immediate implication for hospitals and for elective surgical procedures requiring blood support”.
“There has been a consistently strong hospital demand for blood and we need to boost our collections by nearly 400 donations per week to meet it,” he said. While stocks of blood would have been imported during previous shortages, other countries, such as the UK, are also experiencing supply shortfalls at present.The number of new donors signing up for the first time has also fallen significantly following the Covid-19 pandemic, the IBTS said.
“So we have work to do to try and encourage new donors to come back and refresh the panel. Also, hospital demand is very high. For the first quarter of this year, we issued more red cells and platelets than we have for the last ten years. So demand is high from the hospitals. We really need the support of donors, it’s really a supply and demand challenge.”
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