COVID-19 is making it harder for the Blood Bank of Delmarva (BBD) to get out in the community to get blood donations. And that’s prompting the Blood Bank to ask people to visit their donor centers.
Mobile blood drives hosted by high schools, colleges, businesses and others normally make up about 40-percent of the region’s incoming blood supply.
But the coronavirus pandemic has cut the number of drives by two-thirds this year - and Blood Bank communications specialist Tony Prado says that problem is now compounded by a drop in donor center appointments.
“So here we are, we’re just steamrolling through August, and that means September is right around the corner. And it’s typical for us to have a little bit of a lull; we hit a wall here in the past week or so where appointments have slowed up. We’ve had a number of openings and we’ve been a little slow. And that’s disconcerting,” said Prado.
Prado notes that the Blood Bank needs to supply 19 hospitals on the Delmarva Peninsula every day and with upcoming blood drives at colleges and high schools canceled, this will be a challenge.
“We cannot look forward to the respite that offers," said Prado. "Just alone - the schools account for 25% of the blood we collect during any given week during the school year.”
He notes the loss of school and college drives is especially significant because they result in 8,000 blood donations during each school year.
“As we all know, as schools return, they’re going to have either a hybrid format where they’re in school in-person sometimes, but also some are doing strictly online learning," said Prado. "That means that we can’t be physically on the campus of high schools and colleges to collect blood from young, eager doors.”
Prado says the Blood Bank encourages all eligible donors to make appointments at its four donor centers, which all have expanded capacity and hours of operation to safely accommodate more donors.
Those interested in bringing groups in are asked to please email Director of Donor Recruitment Marie Forrestal at mforrestal@nybc.org. Scholarships will be awarded to students who are most active in bringing in donors.
