Desperate need for blood as stocks diminish

THE SA National Blood Service’s ( SANBS) need for blood has grown as stocks continue to decrease.

The SANBS requires blood stock that can sustain the country for a minimum of five days. Yesterday, the service stood at below half of that – 2.4 days – which is a significant drop from the 3.6 days of blood it had last Thursday.

Stocks of blood group O- negative remained the lowest.

The SANBS called for more donations from people in this blood group because it was a universal donor.

It said despite the response from its regular donors, it was experiencing dire blood shortages owing to the scarcity of mobile blood drive venues.

Covid- 19 restrictions limited the service’s ability to collect adequate blood stocks since it was unable to access schools, colleges and corporates for blood drives.

SANBS chief operations officer Ravi Reddy said: “At the SANBS, we are doing our utmost to continue to maintain adequate blood stock levels to service the needs of our country.

“The high demand for blood requires that we work even harder together to ensure that no lives are lost due to blood shortages.”

He said booking group donations and hosting mobile blood drive events was another way to engage with the donor network to save lives.

“In years past, our partners and community- minded supporters have kept us going. Through setting and meeting collection goals together, we have been able to meet the constant demand for blood.

“We also call on all our donors who are due for donations to visit their nearest donor centre to boost the blood stocks that are critically low,” he said.