this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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205
Red Cross declares nationwide emergency due to critically low blood supply (www.cbsnews.com)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The American Red Cross has declared an emergency blood shortage, saying patients are at risk of not getting lifesaving transfusions.

...

Donors are needed now more than ever as the Red Cross faces a national emergency shortage, with the number of donors at a 20-year low. Medical director Dr. Eric Gehrie says the Red Cross has experienced a loss of 300,000 donors since the COVID-19 pandemic alone.

"It means that hospitals will order a certain number of units of blood, and those orders are not being filled fully," he said. "So hospital blood banks are low on blood."

Gehrie says the Red Cross supplies about 40% of the nation's blood supply. He says emptier shelves could force hospitals to make excruciating decisions about which patients are prioritized for blood.

"Doctors have to make choices about which patients can receive a transfusion in a given day," he says. "Surgeries like heart can be delayed waiting for the available blood to be collected and sent to the hospital."

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[–] [email protected] 122 points 7 months ago (7 children)

The issue is donation centers are shitty, workers are untrained, and corporations make a shit ton of money selling our "donations" while people that get it have to pay.

Kind of sours people on donating.

Last time I gave they went thru the vein, gave me a giant "golf ball" hematoma and then the workers "playfully teased me" it was going to slow.

They shut up pretty quickly when I showed them how fucked up my arm was, took almost two weeks for the bruise to go away.

When I stopped donating, I started getting automated phone calls that stared out with a distraught woman screaming:

Help, there's been an accident!

Fuck these literal vampire corporations. We need a government donation system where 2-3 middlemen don't make millions and the people who need the blood don't have to pay for it.

[–] Assman 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Man I really want to donate blood and I've tried several times. The last time I went they literally stuck the needle in, wiggled it around for a few seconds, pulled it out, and then did the same thing two more times.

They wanted to keep trying. Like do they go to a John Wayne Gacy LARP convention to find these people? I'm sorry to anyone who needs others' blood to survive, but it's literal torture.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago

The most fucked up thing, is the "donation centers" are 100% running a cost/benefit analysis.

They're trying to zero in on getting just enough blood with the bare minimum expense.

They can afford to have better staff and facilities, and they don't need to rely on crazy phone calls.

But then they don't make as much off what people are giving away.

Its bad enough we legitimately can't trust them when they say there's an emergency. Maybe hospitals are running low, maybe they just want a little more money this quarter.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Seriously, I'm so done with giving away resources (blood, money, time, anything) to for-profit corporations that are going to sell that shit for thousands/millions of dollars while I go through hell to make it happen. Fuck all of that!

You want to sell my blood? Pay me!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Have you forgotten where you are? We make everything for profit, from your emergency medical care to your child's education, call that efficiency, and calling for anything not to be poisoned by the profit motive makes you a filthy commie Leninist socialist who loves Venezuela or something.

Greed and greed worship has destroyed us, the accelerating climate change and diminished growth/metastasis induced collapse will be a mercy in the long term.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Yup, I'm not donating blood because the corps fuck over the folks with the high prices.

[–] robotopera 7 points 7 months ago

Same experience here. It's like 1/4 times they are going to fuck up with the needle. And then they call you, always from different numbers, to guilt you into donating. The last time I went they fucked up 3 times before asking if they could switch arms.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I donated blood once a couple of years ago. Afterwards, they called me several times a week for like a year. They still call me like once a month. I can't get them to stop. They have called me hundreds of times. I'll never donate again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I can’t get them to stop

What I did was call back and get a real human.

I explained all the automated calls theyre doing was just making me not want to donate. And that since they come from different numbers I can't just block them.

So I said the soonest I'll ever donate to their company was a year after my last phone call.

It's been like 6-9 months and I haven't gotten a single phone call.

Because these companies are literal vampires and all they care about is blood.

Not sure if the calls are gonna start again or not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Yep. Red cross charges about $150 a pint for the blood you gave them for free. Pretty close to operating costs, probably.

Hospitals charge patients about $1,500 a pint, so they make over $1,200 a pint off what you gave away for free.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Both the USA and Canada have made blood donation require more effort.

Pre-pandemic you could simply walk into one of the many convenient blood donation center and walk out inside an hour having done all the test/paperwork and whole blood donation. Not only have they closed many donation locations, but also require you to schedule a donation.

Further, some are getting more picky about what donations they accept. Canadian Blood Services stopped accepting American blood donors in 2020 (temporarily?). They've since closed the donation location (but are in the process of building a new one). Finally, they aren't doing whole blood donations anymore and only taking plasma which requires apheresis blood donation. This mean instead of 25 min or so bleeding, from one arm, its 1.5 to 2 hours of having two tubes hooked up, one to each arm, and them shoving your non-plasma blood back into you.

American Red Cross is requiring scheduled times the last time I checked. I was turned away at the door because of scheduling requirements on two different occasions and don't think I'll try for a third.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There was a report in ... I dunno, the early 2000's, that the Australian Red Cross was running extremely low on blood. But when some paper (maybe the Sydney Morning Herald?) investigated, they found that the blood supply itself was fine; what was running low were the igg or igf factors they were removing from the blood and selling to corporations for massive profits. :/

[–] clay_pidgin 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They just changed the rules recently and made me eligible to donate for the first time in my life. It's been more complicated than I had anticipated to actually donate! I gather it wasn't always like this? I just want to walk into a hospital or something and take a half hour nap while they suck me dry.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

It was much easier pre-covid.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm in central Ohio. The regular place I used to go to donate regularly cancels my appointments due to staffing issues. I've taken to going to pop-up areas because those don't cancel appointments. They only do whole blood and power red.

Yes, my understanding is that you have to schedule an appointment, although you can usually schedule for the next day.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Pop-ups doing whole blood, got it. As they get more desperate, I expect we'll see more of these. And central Ohio has a lot of hospitals.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I find they tend to be at churches, libraries, or hospitals.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

I did triple platelets once and it was miserable

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's what happens when ppl are sucked dry by capitalism already!

Yeah, I'll show myself out

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Nice try vampires, keep your cookies and watery oj

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

Socialize production but privatize profits.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I've been donating plasma for like 60$/800ml, does donating blood pay anything?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Legally it cannot here in the US. After it is collected they are fine selling it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Which I find dystopian & infuriating.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Everyone is sick and donation has become increasingly more difficult. I have been actively donating since 2017 and it is longer process, with less spots open, with more paperwork.

Enshitification or the anti-industrial revolution or cost disease whatever you want to call it. Used to be a few minutes of waiting, 20 minutes of pumping, and you could go any time over a daily 12 hour window.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Pretty easy here. Climbed onto a bus in the Walmart parking lot, filled out about 10 minutes of paperwork which you only need to do the first time and then there was a needle in my arm. 20 minutes later I had a cookie and some juice and an amazon gift card.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'd give mine but apparently I was British during the mad cow era so they refuse it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure if that restriction is still in place. At least in my situation, I was in Europe during the 80s for a few years on a naval base and was restricted from donating blood for the longest time. Apparently at some point that ban was lifted by the FDA and your Mad Cow blood is good enough to donate now:

https://www.va.gov/pittsburgh-health-care/stories/many-veterans-who-served-in-europe-can-now-give-blood-fda-lifts-ban/

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Good to know! I was born there and lived there for 25 years, but I'm naturalized here now. I'll check back in and see if I qualify now, that'd be cool because I have an uncommon blood type.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Red cross charges hospitals $150 a pint for the blood you donate for free/almost free. That covers overhead, for the most part.

The hospitals in turn completely fuck over anyone who needs that blood they got for $150 by charging around $1,500 a pint.

I'm not donating until I either get paid for my blood, or hospitals charge more like $300.

Whenever there's a blood supply issue they stop elective surgeries. Well that's big business right there, and they could fix it in an instant if they start paying people a fair amount for their blood, and they'd do it if it wasn't being donated enough.