Willing but some blood not needed

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

The number of red blood cell donations was down in Northland in the past two years - but not because Northerners weren't willing to give.

In the 12 months to the end of September, there were 1925 donations in 2013 and 1746 in 2014 in Northland. The previous four years had more than 2000 donations each.

New Zealand Blood Service's recruitment northern team leader Laurinda Howarth said the drop was due to a greater emphasis on getting particular blood types, rather than people being unwilling to donate.

"We've become very blood-type specific," she said. "We don't just purely want anybody anymore, because we don't want to waste people's blood."

The service encouraged donors to make appointments, and called donors with A and O type bloods more often than they called donors with less common blood types. No matter the blood required, Whangarei always turned out.

"Whangarei is one of our saviours. We always feel comfortable going there because we know donors will turn up and give us the blood we need. [Whangarei] is a very, very good collect for us."

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 next 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.

Blood Service spokeswoman Asuka Burge said donation numbers had dropped as demand for red blood cells had decreased. Red blood cells were 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 were being unnecessarily exposed to risks of adverse effects. 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.

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