Stormy weather leaves Canadian Blood Services with less inventory
Posted Dec 30, 2016 07:47:12 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s in the season to give, but with multiple blasts of winter weather the Canadian Blood Services has seen a decline in its number of donors.
Attendance has been down across the country, including Nova Scotia according to Peter MacDonald, the Director of Donor Relations for Canadian Blood Services Atlantic Canada.
He tells NEWS 95.7 in Atlantic Canada the target was to collect more than 1,600 units of blood in the two weeks prior to Christmas. With clinics cancelled in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI and Newfoundland more than 400 of those units weren’t collected – that’s about 25 per cent of collections missing.
“Every year leading into the holiday’s we look to build our inventory because the week between Christmas and New Years has always been challenging in terms of attendance at our blood donor clinics,” MacDonald says. “This year we didn’t have the opportunity to ramp up the inventory because two weeks prior to the holidays we had significant challenges with the winter weather.”
MacDonald says there are still more than 600 appointments available to donate in Atlantic Canada before the New Year.
“Hospital demand remains constant over the holidays yet our inventory traditionally dips as we have less appointments booked and our attendance rates suffer,” he says. “A patient should never question whether the product will be available or not.”
To find a local clinic open near you visit blood.ca.
