Blood donors drop as supply rationed

Diane Ross, pictured at home in Hastings, has given blood for 40 years. Photo / Glenn Taylor

Diane Ross, 57, has always enjoyed great health so she figured she'd spend 40 minutes every few months to help people who weren't so lucky.

She's been doing that for the last 40 years.

The Havelock North woman found her first red blood cell donation "quite enlightening" and has taken every opportunity to donate since.

"I've got great blood that others need and it doesn't cost me anything to give it," she said.

Giving blood had the added benefit of meeting like-minded people, she said.

"I've always found people at blood donor places incredibly friendly.

"It's lovely sitting down and having a cup of tea and chocolate biscuit and chatting to whoever's there afterwards."

Hawke's Bay isn't short on generous donors such as Ms Ross, though seven times fewer red blood cell donations were made year ending September 30 than in the previous year.

The Napier donor centre was closed down last November, because of a decrease in demand for red blood cells, meaning there were far less opportunities for people to donate. The Nelson donor centre was also closed due to a reduction in demand.

Nationally, the number of red blood cell donations has decreased markedly in the past five years.

From October 1, 2008 to September 30, 2009 there were 152,098 donations. This total rose slightly for the same period the following year and then dropped to 148,555 from 2010 to 2011.

The most significant drop was from 2012 to 2013 - down 13,490 to 129,502. In the past year, donations dropped again to 120,006.

New Zealand Blood Service's area manager for the Central Region Alastair Neill said the service had, however, sent mobile units to Hawke's Bay for several three-day stints during the year.

A philosophy of having appointments had been around for years but the service had been ramping up booking numbers to have more control and be more efficient, he said.

"We don't want waste - it's not the right thing to do with taxpayer money - so we try to target what we actually need.

"It's really good if we can send out a message saying we're short on A+ blood, if you have A+ blood and can come down on Friday, get in touch."

National spokeswoman Asuka Burge said donation numbers had dropped as demand for red blood cells had decreased.

Red blood cells were used for treating patients with chronic anaemia from disorders such as kidney failure and cancers, and acute blood loss from trauma or surgery.

Demand dropped due to a blood conservation project initiated by district health boards and the Blood Service in 2010, she said.

The project encouraged medical practitioners to reduce the number of transfusions, as it was found patients were frequently being over-transfused and so being unnecessarily exposed to risks of adverse effects.

Led by the motto "why use two when one will do?", the campaign recommended practitioners issued only one bag of red blood cell units to a patient and reassessing before issuing another, rather than immediately issuing two bags had being done historically, Ms Burge said.

Another project, which supported the message "blood is a gift, use it wisely", ran at the same time to improve the chain of blood sent to hospital blood fridges, and to educate practitioners that overnight transfusions in stable patients were not appropriate.

District health boards saved money, nursing staff saved time and the number of adverse reactions experienced by patients decreased, according to a follow-up report by transfusion medicine specialist Richard Charlewood.

Meanwhile, demand for plasma-only blood, which was used to control bleeding in patients following trauma or transplantation, had increased, she said.

"Our current focus is to encourage blood donors who donate at or near one of our seven donor centres that take plasma donations, to consider becoming a plasma donor to help to meet this demand," she said.

The donor centres are at Epsom in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

The next Hawke's Bay blood drive is at the Napier War Memorial Hall at 2pm on December 9.