Give the gift of blood

The holiday season is when people give to others, but apparently that doesn’t apply to giving blood.

The Inland Northwest Blood Center is seeing a 40 percent decrease in blood donations this winter due to people being sick and on vacation.

“On average we rely on 200 donors every day to serve the region,” said Tesia Hummer, marketing and communications specialist at INBC. Now, she said, they’re getting an average of 120 donations each day.

According to a press release sent by INBC, the blood center needs an extra 1,120 donors just this week to replenish the recent drop in donations.

INBC supplies blood to more than 35 hospitals throughout the region. Kootenai Health gets all of its blood supply from INBC.

“The majority of our blood goes to cancer patients,” said Pat Collins, the blood bank supervisor at Kootenai Health. Patients who are undergoing cardiac surgery, trauma patients and postoperative patients also receive blood.

Collins said they try to keep about 100 units of blood in their bank at all times. Since the beginning of the year through November, Kootenai Health has given 2,588 units of blood, which averages out to 250 units per month.

Collins urges people to donate blood, especially those who are O-negative. O-negative blood is always used on trauma patients because there’s usually not enough time to get the patient’s blood type, and it’s a “scarce resource.”

Another scarce resource, Collins said, are platelets, which are mainly used to help cancer patients and people in cardiac surgery. It takes about two hours to donate platelets and they have to be used within five days of donation. Red blood cells, however, have a shelf life of 42 days.

INBC has several donation locations in Washington and Idaho and blood buses that travel to different locations. The blood center wants to be as accessible as possible so people can donate easily.

Donors can make an appointment to give blood at inbcsaves.org or by calling (800) 423-0151. Tesia Hummer, with INBC, urges healthy people to come in and see if they are eligible to donate blood.

“There is no substitute. When someone’s life depends on blood, they are getting blood from a volunteer donor,” Hummer said. “If they are getting blood in the Inland Northwest, they’re getting it from one of our donors.”