Community Blood Center co-hosts blood drive

All the blood collected will be used for transfusions in the area.

By Megan Donohue

Published Sept. 11, 2009

The Community Blood Center and Student Affairs hosted a blood drive from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday in Memorial Union to help local hospitals.

"What we would really like to see accomplished is 130, but my personal goal is hoping that we get 184 in," said Dave Roberts, director for Leadership Development and Community Involvement. "That is the maximum capacity of students that we can accommodate today."

This is the first time Student Affairs has teamed up with the Community Blood Center for a blood drive.

"This is our first year that we've had it with these groups, but we are talking about it hopefully being an annual drive," Recruitment Representative Bruce Bolzenius said.

By 2 p.m., about halfway through the drive, 105 students had registered.

"I like to do it because it's good," freshman Daniel Steiner said. "I like to get a feeling that I'm helping people."

The Community Blood Center brought in equipment to maximize the efficiency of the donations collected.

"We do the ALYX, and that is an automated instrument, and it takes two packed red cells," Collections Supervisor Teresa Christiansen said. "When you give blood, we take the blood to the center, separate out the plasma and freeze it, and what's left over is the packed cell, and that's what they actually use for the transfusion."

The instrument allows the blood to be processed on location instead of waiting to take it to the thinner and process it there. Using the ALYX allows the drive to collect greater amounts of usable blood.

"We get two units from the donor versus the one, because we don't actually get whole blood, we give back the plasma," Christiansen said.

Although there are no unusual shortages locally, statewide or nationally that specifically prompted the drive, the usual summer slump in blood donors was felt again this year.

"You can always say that during the summer time and the beginning of school there always is a shortage," Christiansen said. "People are busy getting ready for school."

Hospitals are in constant need of blood and it is important for the local blood centers to have enough supply for a few days, Bolzenius said.

"We need to collect blood every day," he said. "Blood supply varies from day to day depending upon the needs of the hospitals. We try to run a four to six day supply to have on hand for the hospitals, and it varies from time to time."

All blood collected at the drive will be used for transfusions in the area, Bolzenius said.

"What we collect is not on research," he said. "The blood that we collect today, except for the tubes that we collect for testing and things like that, will be transmitted to a patient. It's all for the hospital's use."

Students who donated blood in this event will not be able to donate to the Greek Homecoming blood drive.

"If you give at this event you can't give at the Homecoming blood drive," Roberts said. "It's within eight weeks, and there has to be 56 days passed from the last time, and unfortunately that falls within the 56 days."

The next opportunity for students to give blood with the Community Blood Center will be on Nov. 13, through a blood drive sponsored by the Residence Halls Association. The location and time of the blood drive will be announced at a later date.