Winter Weather Impacts Blood Donations; Donors Needed

Blood donations are down because of the winter storm that swept through the Ozarks this week. KSMU's Missy Shelton reports.

Shelton: The winter storm has impacted blood donations in the Ozarks. Joining me on the phone is Chris Pilgrim, marketing manager for Community Blood Center of the Ozarks. Chris, tell us what situation you’re facing in terms of a loss of donors this week.Pilgrim: This has been a tough week for blood donation. This storm has basically cut off donations for the last couple of days. If you consider when you need 275 donations every day to meet area needs, a couple of days of very low donations can really put us in a tough spot. We are trying to recover today. We’ve got a couple of drives going at major universities: Missouri S&T in Rolla and at the University of Arkansas. Those drives have been going all week long, even though the campuses have been closed. Missouri S&T is open today and we’re hoping for a good response from those students. Arkansas remains closed but we’re going to be set up in one of the residence halls in hopes that some people will get to give. Our CBCO donor centers in Springfield, Bentonville, and Springdale are open today during normal hours, 11am-6pm. Our Joplin center in the North Park Mall will remain closed, the third straight day there. Roads remain slick there. That’s the situation—we’ve lost almost 700 potential donations this week. We’re going to scramble to try to pick up the pace a little bit as conditions improve here Thursday and Friday.Shelton: If you’re not able to meet some of the goals you have in mind, what are the consequences for patients at area hospitals.Pilgrim: The good news is we have not missed out on any deliveries to our area hospitals. When the weather gets bad, there’s not as much need for blood as usual. That’s a good thing. Our reserves were fairly good going into this storm. We’re muddling along here. We’re in a code yellow alert right now for Type O Negative and Type A Negative blood. That means there’s less than a two day supply of those two types. Everything else is in pretty good shape but the reserves are dwindling and we need a good response for the rest of this week.