LJWorld.com

As people around the area celebrate the new year, probably one of the last things on their minds is donating blood.

But the busyness surrounding this time of year creates an unintended consequence: low blood supplies for area blood banks.

“People forget to donate blood over the holidays,” said Norma Dixon, communications manager for the Central Plains Region of the American Red Cross.

Coupled with winter breaks for schools and colleges, bad weather and winter illnesses, the blood supply dips even further.

“We’re very low,” said Dixon of the area’s blood supplies, estimating that the Red Cross is 15 percent below the 500 pints a day needed to supply blood to the hospitals in the region. “We’re definitely going to see an impact in the next couple of weeks as to what’s available to hospitals.”

David Graham, director of donor services for the Community Blood Center in Kansas City, Mo., said his agency attempts to build up a blood supply inventory in the weeks prior to the holidays. However, there was a 25 percent decline in donations before Christmas, and a 50 percent decline in donations during the week of Christmas and New Year’s.

Graham receives daily blood inventory updates, and he said the Community Blood Center, which supplies blood to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, is operating with less than a day’s supply of blood. That is far less than the three-day supply the agency would like to have available for the 73 hospitals it supplies blood to in Kansas and Missouri.

The decline during the holidays places additional stress on blood supplies for the month of January, which Graham said is traditionally a period of high demand for blood as people wait until after the holidays to have surgeries. He said the high demand is part of the reason January has been designated National Blood Donor Month.

Collected blood supplies for the region go to local hospitals first, but a nationwide system allows for bringing in blood from other regions when needed. Both the American Red Cross and the Community Blood Center coordinate and collect blood supplies locally.

Faith Nilhas, who coordinates the blood bank at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, said that even if there is not a larger demand for blood locally, other areas of the country may need extra blood, creating a domino effect of blood shortages.

And while Nilhas said low blood supplies have not yet canceled surgeries at LMH this winter, the decrease in blood supplies could become an issue for those in need of blood.

“We fear for the patients,” Nilhas said.

Graham said that in these tough economic times, donating blood is a way for area people to make a big difference without affecting their pocketbooks.

“We depend on generous volunteer donors … to save lives in our community,” Graham said.

— Correspondent Shaun Hittle is a journalism graduate student at Kansas University. He can be reached at hittle@ku.edu.