A critical need for blood has agencies urging people to make time to donate this summer.
The Community Blood Center is preventing the blood shortage from getting worst by holding a blood drive Friday at Mercy Health-St Rita's. Blood donation always goes down during the summer season, and following the Fourth of July holiday, the community blood center says the usage for type “O” blood outpaced the collection. They provide blood for St. Rita's and other hospitals in their 17-county region, and they want people to understand the importance of donating this time of year.
“That is why St. Rita's is so important, it is a day where blood donors are turning out. Not in the huge numbers, not in the numbers that we may have had in previous drives. But we realize that they are up against every else that everybody else is,” says Mark Pompilio, Marketing Manager for Community Blood Center. “People are on vacation, people are traveling and then meanwhile with travel and outdoor activities comes more traffic through the emergency room. So it is a problem. It is a perfect storm for high usage of blood.”
If you would like to learn more about upcoming blood drives and what it takes to donate, you can go to the Community Blood Center’s website www.donortime.org.
