Solvita, Red Cross: Local blood supply is critically low
With steady demand for Types O and B, Red Cross says its number of donors is lowest in 20 years.
The region’s primary blood center says it has a critical need for multiple blood types due to recent high usage of blood and low collections following the holiday period.
The call for local donations from Solvita comes after the American Red Cross, the nation’s largest blood supplier, sounded the alarm this week over a severe blood shortage affecting U.S. hospitals.
The number of Red Cross blood donors has dropped by about 40% over the last 20 years, and today, it’s at its lowest point in those 20 years, said Marita Salkowski, regional communications director for the American Red Cross of Central and Southern Ohio.
Salkowski said Red Cross is responsible for the monitoring of the national blood supply network, which fluctuates daily. The nonprofit organization ensures blood is distributed to where it is needed the most, she said.
She said the availability of blood can be the difference between life and death for someone needing medical care, noting that someone in the U.S. needs blood every two seconds.
“Only 3% of those who are eligible to give blood actually donate,” Salkowski said.
Mark Pompilio, spokesman for Dayton-based Solvita Blood Center, said Type O blood is currently in low supply here, and there is a critically scarce supply of type B blood. He also said the local shortages mirror what is happening at the national level.
Solvita, the former Community Blood Center, is an independent nonprofit organization that collects blood and tissue donations.
Pompilio said Type O is the universal blood type and is in constant demand for emergency usage, while Type B is more rare, with fewer available donors.
He said a shooting and multi-vehicle collision on U.S. 35 in Dayton on Monday resulted in a spike in blood usage, with 20 blood products transfused.
Pompilio said all blood donations are welcome, adding that donations through Solvita are distributed throughout the Miami Valley.
“We have 18 counties in western Ohio and east central Indiana where we supply hospitals,” he said. “We’re coming off the holidays, and that has a lingering hangover effect (for donations).”
Pompilio said it also takes time after the holidays to ramp up school and workplace blood donation drives. Weather issues
are just as adverse as not being on them, in my opinion,” the Republican lawmaker said. “I think gender affirming care for youth is not a good decision. There’s a lot of decisions that need to be made in the future and they’re blocking themselves in the corner at an early age.”
Creech’s comments fall in line with many other Republican lawmakers who are concerned about the potential health consequences of such treatments. In particular, treatments such as supplemental estrogen for transgender women, “can affect fertility and sexual function, and might lead to health problems,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
Increased suicide fears
Mel Carroll, a Dayton-based, Black transgender man and manager of gender affirming care health navigation for Equitas Health, told this news organization that he fears a spike in acute mental health issues, including a rise in suicide, for future transgender minors who would, under the bill, not be able to access medical treatments.
Carroll, 54, began his medical transition at 40 and spoke to this news organization on his own behalf, though he did confirm that Equitas does not provide gender dysphoria treatment of any sort for minors and that his stance is not shaped by financial impact the law would have, if any, on the company.
Like Arnold, Carroll said he would have benefited from beginning his transition before turning 18. He likened the experience of growing up with gender dysphoria, particularly in formative teenage years, as “living with a mask on.”
“If people start their gender affirming care at a younger age, it’s better for them — and, this is just my opinion — mental health wise, because you’re battling and you start to hate yourself after a while because you’re not the person you know you are,” Carroll said.
Carroll explained that minors, if in the right environment, have fewer negative outside factors to take into consideration than adults do when contemplating a medical transition.
He explained that many adults would fear violence or assault against them, losing a job and experiencing homelessness or family and friends’ abandonment — fears that minors in the right environment could be sheltered from.
“As a child, you don’t have those same fears as you do as an adult,” he said.
Statehouse debate
The Ohio House voted 65-28 on Wednesday to override Dewine’s veto of House Bill 68.
While the legislation has two critical functions, much of the debate surrounding the topic has centered on the gender affirming care aspect of the bill, which includes a late-added provision that allows minors already receiving gender affirming medical care to continue their treatment.
Gender affirming medical care ranges from puberty blockers used to stave off the effects of puberty in transgender teenagers; feminizing or masculinizing hormones to reverse the effects of puberty; or gender affirming surgeries including genital reconstruction (known as “bottom” surgery) and double mastectomies or breast enhancements (known as “top” surgery).
In the Statehouse, perspectives on how important it is for transgender youth to have the choice of starting or foregoing gender affirming medical care can largely be sorted into to three categories.
There are those who believe trans minors, their families and doctors ought to be allowed to make caseby-case decisions without limitations, a stance echoed by Democratic lawmakers; there are those like Dewine who believe that hormone treatments should be available, but not surgery; and there are those like the voting bulk of Republican lawmakers who believe that any such medical treatment should be out of reach for minors, full stop.
Decision makers in all three camps have repeatedly stated that they believe their approach is what’s best for Ohio children.
With the House’s vote cast, it’s expected that the Gop-dominated Ohio Senate will follow in its next session, scheduled for late January.
The bill would go into effect 90 days thereafter. But some of the Senate GOP, including Sen. Niraj Antani of Miamisburg, are pushing for the override to be acted on with more haste.
“I think we should come back immediately,” Antani told this news organization.