CT Blood Center faces emergency blood shortage, drop in donations post-Thanksgiving

CT Insider – Wednesday, December 4, 2024
By Abby Weiss

Amid the season of giving, Connecticut Blood Center (CTBC) in Middletown is asking residents to donate blood for local hospitals as part of their holiday tradition.

CTBC, the main supplier of blood and blood products to more than a dozen hospitals in Connecticut, declared an emergency blood shortage on Monday following a 20 percent decline in donations after Thanksgiving, according to a news release from the center.

“Traditionally, the holiday season brings with it a critical blood shortage, as even our most reliable donors get caught up in the hectic whirlwind of parties, family, friends and traditions,” Dr. Bradford Sherbourne, medical director of Hartford Hospital Laboratories, said in the release.

The shortage comes during “one of the most critical times of the year” for donations, the release states. The demand for blood and blood products tends to increase around the holidays due to travel-related incidents, routine surgeries and other factors.

Many hospitals are already seeing the need grow post-Thanksgiving, and the center currently has around 80 percent of the supply necessary to meet hospital demand, Jonathan DeCasanova, the account manager and community relations representative for Connecticut Blood Center, said.

Twenty-five percent of trauma patients require blood transfusions for treatment, according to the center. As a result, the CTBC typically sees a rise in demand for blood products during busy travel seasons.

In addition to treating traumatic injuries, the center needs donations year-round for routine patient care. Cancer patients, newborn babies and their mothers, those diagnosed with sickle cell disease and many others rely on blood donors on daily basis to receive the proper care, the center said.

“(Those illnesses) take no holiday breaks,” DeCasanova said.

The center is especially in need of Type O (O- and O+) donations, which is critical for treating trauma and emergency care patients. Type O+ is the most common blood type in the U.S. and type O- is the universal blood type.

“This time of year we do, unfortunately, see an uptick depending on the health care system with travel-related accidents, and so that type of blood can be very valuable to those patients,” DeCasanova said.

National blood shortages tend to happen in the summer and around winter holidays, DeCasanova said. Connecticut Blood Center and the American Red Cross also declared a blood emergency over the summer, and there was also a nationwide shortage in the Type O- and O+ blood types that was impacting local hospitals.

The trend is partly due to an increase in demand from travel-related incidents. College and high school students, a large source of blood collection in the country, are also on break and are less likely to give donations during those seasons, DeCasanova said. Winter specifically sees surges in respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and influenza, which can decrease the number of people eligible to donate blood, DeCasanova said.

Hurricane Helene and Milton also significantly impacted the nation’s blood supply in October.

During the summer blood shortage, CTBC, Hartford Healthcare and Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz hosted a joint press conference at the Hartford Healthcare corporate offices in July to raise awareness for the issue in Connecticut. The center teamed up with Hartford Healthcare over the summer to put a mobile pod donation site on Hartford Healthcare’s campus for two weeks. The pod will be stationed at the campus again from Dec. 23 through Jan. 3, DeCasanova said.

Apart from the regular fluctuations, the number of blood donations in the U.S. has been declining. Over the last 20 years, the number of people donating blood through the American Red Cross has fallen by about 40 percent, according to a January 2024 release from the organization.

DeCasanova hopes to see more participation from first-time donors or people from younger generations to help reverse this trend. A significant portion of blood donors for New York Blood Enterprises, CTBC’s parent organization, across the nation are baby boomers.

“It’s really the younger generations —Millennials and Gen Zers — that we need assistance with in terms of filling the gap as baby boomers get older. And we’re not seeing that quite yet in the way that we would like to see it,” DeCasanova.

He said educating high school and college students on the importance of blood donations is a potential solution.

“Blood can’t come from from a lab. It has to come from a human individual donating blood, whether that be red blood cells, platelets (and) plasma,” he said. “And so that is ultimately why it’s so important for the community to come out and donate in these critical times, because we’re not able to manufacture it in any other way. It has to come from one individual stepping up and rolling up that sleeve and donating blood so that doctors, nurses, PAs have the ability to treat the patients.”

Blood donors can give every 56 days and eligible individuals are encouraged to donate at least once per season, according to the center. To view current eligibility guidelines or make an appointment, visit ctblood.org or call 800.688.0900.

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