On Friday, Jan. 10 Vitalant held a blood drive at Nutranext in Cottonwood. It was the first of several blood drives that the nonprofit is holding in the Verde Valley over the next few weeks in the hopes of replenishing blood supplies — especially O-negative type — after the holiday season.
“We strive to maintain a 4-day supply of blood just to provide what patients need, and currently we’re at less than half that for certain blood types,” wrote Dr. Ralph Vassallo, Chief Medical Officer at Vitalant, which was until recently known as United Blood Services. “Blood on the shelf helps patients every day — for traumas, cancer treatments and critical transfusions — and enables us to be ready if disaster strikes.”
According to Sue Thew, Media Relations Coordinator for Vitalant in Arizona, the whole state — 62 hospitals served by the nonprofit — is facing this shortage mostly on O-negative blood. Though they have gotten used to seeing a drop in donations around the holidays — with people traveling, offices closing and schools that often hold blood drives out of session — they still face difficulty in replenishing supplies, with surgery rates rising again after the end of the holiday season.
“Both O-positive and O-negative are the two universal blood types that can be substituted for other blood types in emergencies, so those blood types are transfused at a higher rate than other blood types,” Thew said. “They’re usually the first blood types that we get shortages of. Right now we’re at about a one-day supply of both O-positive and O-negative, and because it takes 24 to 48 hours just to process blood before it can be released to a hospital, that means that we’re going through our supplies of that blood faster than we can rebuild it.”
According to Thew, Vitalant prioritizes need at hospitals, so the shortage has not yet come to affect patients, but having a supply of extra blood is still important for the organization to prepare for unexpected eventualities.
“Verde Valley Medical Center has been unaffected by the shortage thus far,” Trista MacVittie, chief experience and communication officer for Northern Arizona Healthcare, wrote in an email. “We have our usual number of units in our inventory. We monitor it very closely to ensure we can meet the needs of our community.”
Verde Valley Medical Center is one of several locations holding blood drives in the coming weeks, taking donations on Friday, Jan. 17 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 18 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Additional blood drives will be held Tuesday, Jan. 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Sedona Red Rock High School, Saturday Jan. 25 from 7:30 a.m. to noon at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, and Tuesday, Jan. 28 from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Mingus Union High School.
