The American Red Cross is limiting daily blood products for area hospitals. WNIN’s Sarah Kuper reports that’s according to a memo sent to Deaconess Hospital healthcare providers:
The current blood shortage in the Tri-State is so severe that if a patient needs more than a certain amount of blood in a trauma or other scenario, doctors will have to wait for permission to get it or make a difficult decision about care.
The memo from Deaconess’ Regional Laboratory officials reads in part "Red Cross anticipates their limited O Red Blood Cell inventory will be insufficient to meet all trauma and emergency needs and urges hospitals to increase conservation measures."
Some of those conservation efforts include decreasing the amount of blood transfused for non-symptomatic individuals (like anemic cancer patients for example).
After three rounds of transfusions for an emergency patient, a pathologist must be asked to evaluate blood supply and advise doctors on how and if they can proceed.
The memo says that if a hospital requests more than the allotted supply, the Red Cross Medical Director will judge whether or not to grant the request.
The blood product limit is affecting all area hospitals and is expected to remain in place for several months.
Also included in the memo is information on how hospital staff can donate their blood at work.
