Storm Worsens Summer Blood Supply Shortage

A traditional summer slack-off in donations, worsened this week by the disruption caused by Hurricane Bob, has blood collection centers around the country facing shortages, the American Red Cross said Tuesday.

One Detroit-area blood supplier used its last 30 units for a transplant operation Tuesday, leaving Michigan’s most populous region in a critical shortage, Red Cross officials said.

Elsewhere, in areas hit by the hurricane, donations already were low and some drives were canceled as the storm moved through.

“We’ve had requests from all over the country” for extra blood, said Elizabeth Hall, spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Washington. “Very little blood is moving across the country because very little is available.”

The Southeastern Michigan Red Cross chapter, which covers more than 4 million of Michigan’s 9 million people, used up blood held in reserve for liver transplants and emergencies, spokeswoman Denise Morrow said.

“This is very, very critical,” she said. “We rarely dip into our emergency and liver shelves.”

Hospitals were worried.

“That means we will have difficulty in handling our elective surgery cases that will require large amounts of transfusions and also will compromise and prevent the proper care of the major surgical emergencies,” said Dr. Farouck Obeid, chairman of the blood transfusion committee at Henry Ford Health Care Corp.

The hospital hoped for public donations.

At Boston-area hospitals, blood supplies reached critically low levels partially because of the hurricane, Red Cross officials said.

Severe weather forced cancellation of all blood drives in Maine and all but two in Massachusetts. Almost 1,000 donations were lost.

The Red Cross’ Northeast region can meet patient needs for a day and a half, three days less than normal. The area is making a national appeal.

Hall said shortages have been reported around the country, but Detroit, Boston and Washington, D.C., were hit hardest.

In the Washington area, Kathy Samanski of the Chesapeake-Potomac blood bank program, said scheduled blood drives have not yielded anticipated donations and there was only enough blood on hand for one day.