Blood still needed after good holiday campaign

WATERLOO REGION — Over the holidays, a large number of people in the region rolled up their sleeves and donated blood, making it one of the most successful seasons for collection.

“This is typically the hardest time of the year for us to get folks in to donate because they’re really busy with their holiday plans and being with family,” said Tara Gutscher, with Canadian Blood Services. “We were extremely happy with how things went.”

The goal for New Hamburg, Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge for the week of Christmas was to collect 448 donations of blood; 419 donations were made.

Gutscher said part of the reason for the end of year success is the support of many local businesses that chose to “adopt” a blood donation day, and encourage their staff to give.

“For the most part (donated blood is) actually used in the region it’s collected in,” she said. “It can be transported across the country so if something dire happened in Vancouver we can ship it, but most of the time you donate you’re helping somebody locally.”

Thousands of patients in the Grand River Hospital’s emergency, childbirth, children’s, surgical and cancer and kidney programs rely on blood products annually, Malcolm Maxwell, the hospital’s president and chief executive officer, said in a news release.

Staff and volunteers at the hospital also give and were ranked by Canadian Blood Services as one of the top hospitals in the country for donations made throughout 2017; 571 donations were made.

While regional campaigns over the holiday season and throughout 2017 at the hospital went exceptionally well, that isn’t the case throughout the province and the rest of the country, said Gutscher.

“We are still looking at an immediate need for blood,” she said.

“O-negative blood type, to be at an optimal inventory, we would have stores of about five to eight days on hand (for) the whole country; right now we have just over two.”

And with the holiday season coming to an end, the need for blood donations in Waterloo Region is ramping up again.

The K-W Blood Donor clinic on Bridgeport is open six days a week. From now until Jan. 13, it still has 350 of 576 appointments available for donations.

While Canadian Blood Services appreciates when appointments are made, Gutscher said anyone who has a free hour is welcome to drop in at this point in time, as the need is that serious.

The Cambridge clinic, on International Village Drive, is open on Jan. 9 from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m. and still has 44 spots left out of 120.