Supply in demand: When summer heats up, the number of blood donors slows down

People manage to make time for several activities in the summer, but it's the thing they stop doing this time of year that has the American Red Cross of Southeast Missouri a little nervous.

Blood donations notoriously fall short in the summer. Offices hold the same number of blood drives as they do in the colder months, but the people just don't come, said Rene Goodman, donor recruitment representative in Cape Girardeau.

The Red Cross likes to maintain a six-day supply, meaning if the Red Cross stopped collecting blood, they could supply local hospitals with blood for six days.

Of the eight blood types, O negative is the only one that can be given to people with every other type of blood, making it the universal donor and therefore extremely important in emergency situations. The was .17 of a day's supply of O negative Monday.

"One motor vehicle accident could take all [the current supply]. One gunshot wound could take all that. One ruptured aneurysm could take all that," said Marilyn Hughey, blood bank specialist at Saint Francis Medical Center. The O negative supply is important, she said, because "if you have a trauma come in and you don't know the blood type, O negative is your first choice."

Merideth Leimer of Jackson donates blood at Southeast Hospital as a line of doners wait their turn behind her. By mid-afternoon the goal of 70 doners had already been exceeded. "I guess it was the t-shirt," joked volunteer June Stone. (AARON EISENHAUER)

Goodman gets an e-mail every morning telling her how much blood the Red Cross has, and the numbers are low.

"We think it's just because people have other things to do," Goodman said. "Vacations, summer sports leagues, working in the garden."

The summertime lull in donors was amplified by severe thunderstorms in mid-May. Goodman was at a high school in Ste. Genevieve, Mo., on May 8 when they had to take cover and call off the blood drive. In the days after those storms, more drives were called off.

"Either people were cleaning up and couldn't host or they couldn't donate," she said. "Marquand School, their windows got blown out so they couldn't host one."

Goodman also had drives scheduled in Jackson and Altenburg. The Red Cross held those drives "but nobody came," she said.

Blood units have a 42-day shelf life, meaning most of the blood collected before the storms and before schools let out for the summer has been used or expired.

The low inventory can cause doctors to postpone non-emergency surgeries and makes Southeast Missouri Hospital blood bank supervisor Julie Wengert a little anxious. Wengert is in charge of maintaining the inventory in the blood bank. She keeps in constant contact with the Red Cross and said when she hears there's a shortage, "that tells me that I'm going to have a difficult time keeping us stocked."

She talks to physicians about which patients will need what blood and which patients can probably wait for their procedure.

"We don't ever want to put a patient in a situation where we don't have enough blood products," she said.

Wengert said she donates "as often as Red Cross will allow us to donate."

The Red Cross allows eligible donors to give blood every 56 days. Eligible donors are 17 or older (16 with parental consent), weigh more than 110 pounds and are healthy enough to perform normal activities.

charris@semissourian.com

388-3641

TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL DONATION

Get a good night's sleep

Have a good breakfast or lunch

Drink extra water and fluids to replace the volume you will donate (avoid tea, coffee and other beverages with caffeine)

Eat iron-rich foods -- red meat, fish, poultry or liver, beans, iron-fortified cereals, raisins and prunes

Avoid fatty foods, such as hamburgers, fries or ice cream before donating. Tests for infections done on all donated blood can be affected by fatty materials -- lipids -- that appear in your blood for several hours after eating fatty foods.

-- American Red Cross

UPCOMING BLOOD DRIVES

8 a.m. to noon Wednesday, Chateau Girardeau

1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Cape West 14 Cine

3 to 7 p.m. Monday, Elks Lodge in Chaffee, Mo.

7 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 18, Southeast Missouri Hospital

2 to 7 p.m. June 22, Cape Girardeau VFW hall