By MATT PIKE
The entire state of Missouri is in need of blood donors as the blood supply level has reached severely low levels of 35%.
Executive Director of the American Red Cross northwest Missouri and Greater Kansas City chapter JoAnn Woody says its typical around this time to see donations low
“It happens every year around the holidays, people get busy traveling, a lot of family plans, donating blood is about the last thing on their list, add to that flu season, just all the things,” Woody tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “But the winter storm just made it even more pronounced, between people not being able to get to blood drives, between schools and businesses being closed and not being able to use their facilities for blood drives, it just compounded the issues completely.”
Woody says the winter storms made it harder to get to blood drives but also forced around seven to be canceled around the Kansas City area.
“Now if you figure each blood drive might have the ability to bring in about 15 to 25 blood donors, that’s 15 to 25 per drive, and if you lose seven drives you’re looking at close to 100 units of blood that went uncollected,” Woody explains “So that’s 100, potentially lives, that were put maybe at risk somewhere down the road because blood supply may have been less or may not have been as readily available.”
Woody says already people are beginning to recognize the need for blood and are getting back out and donating as February begins
“Our team here at the Red Cross has been extremely aggressive in connecting with other businesses, connecting with other organizations, and doing what we can to shift people to other blood drives, maybe a blood drive in this part of the city was canceled but another one was able to stay, so trying to see if people can go to that blood drive instead ” Woody says. “Or trying to bring on new potential blood drive hosts, so that we can maybe mitigate some of that, and they’ve been very successful so far.”
All types of blood are needed, but the most requested are O negative and positive, as well as A and B negative.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt.
