Blood stocks plummet to three-day supply

BLOOD stocks have plummeted since the end of October, it was revealed yesterday.

The Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) said supplies would last just three days and described supplies as “very tight”, but not critical.

Ideally, the blood bank would like to have five to seven days’ supplies available for hospitals throughout the country.

At the launch of the blood bank’s annual report for 2006, IBTS chief executive Andrew Kelly said it had stepped up its campaign recently to encourage more people to give blood.

He said the drop in supplies was due to a fall in donations made around the October bank holiday weekend. Demand from hospitals has also risen in recent weeks.

IBTS chairwoman Maura McGrath said only 4% of the population are regular donors and this base must be expanded to ensure adequate supplies.

The blood bank’s national medical director, Dr William Murphy, said the situation was not an “uncomfortable” one because it was still able to meet demand from hospitals on a day-to-day basis.

And, he said, it was only a problem for the IBTS because it did not have any “buffer” stock. In the US, three days’ supply would be regarded as “pretty luxurious”, he said.

And, he said, the blood bank could cope with a big disaster by being able to begin the emergency collections the day after.

The IBTS needs to collect 3,000 blood donations a week, every week. In 2006, 95,168 donors attended IBTS clinics and 151,728 donations were collected.

Mr Kelly said donations decreased last year by 3,178 or 2.05%, with 138,540 units issued.

“While maintaining the blood supply proved a challenge as always, the IBTS did not have to make a nationwide appeal in 2006,” he said.

Last year, 23,260 people attended an IBTS donation clinic for the first time. The average age of blood donors who gave blood last year was 38 with 43,678, or 46%, between 18 and 35.

The blood bank has also found text messaging has proven to be a powerful channel of targeted communication to specific groups of donors.

Vodafone Ireland has donated one million free texts a year to the IBTS which means it can send up to 20,000 texts to prospective donors every week.

Texting has also allowed the blood bank to target specific donors to address shortfalls in supplies of specific blood groups.