With the national blood supply down to just three days, the Irish Blood Transfusion Board is calling for donors, particularly O pos and O neg donors.The organisation says an extra 1,500 donations over the next three weeks are needed to stabilise the blood supply.
“With just three days supply it will be very difficult to guarantee supply to hospitals in the coming weeks unless there is a significant increase in donations.While the summer is always difficult, with donors travelling and their routines disrupted during the school breaks, we still managed to maintain the supply to the hospitals,” said director of operations, Paul McKinney.
“However, attendances at clinics over the past number of weeks have been consistently down 6%, while the demand for blood from hospitals has remained constant.This drop in attendances has eroded the blood supply. The IBTS is calling for blood donors to make a special effort to give blood over the coming weeks to restore blood supplies to seven days across the main blood groups,” he added.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.