Blood center says blood shortage puts patients at risk

As the regional manager of blood donor recruitment for Versiti Blood Center of Illinois, Emily Alanis can click off plenty of reasons to roll up your sleeve and face the needle.

For one, her employer, formerly known as Heartland and the state’s largest supplier of blood products, announced this week that Illinois patients are “at risk” because its inventory is at a “dangerously low point.”

It is at such a critical level, according to Versiti, which delivers to Aurora area hospitals, if there is one major tragedy in your community, there is not enough blood to help.

“We are happy if we have a one-week supply on shelves,” said Alanis, who works in the office on Highland Avenue in Aurora. “Right now we are down to less than a day.”

And she knows from personal experience that can literally mean the difference between life and death.

In 2018, the Winfield woman was preparing for an emergency C-section at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital – during a snowstorm, no less – when blood work showed her platelet count, which should have been between 200 and 450, had dropped to 25.

A transfusion not only saved her life, two days later when it became apparent her antibodies had transferred to newborn son Elliot – his platelet count was five – two more transfusions were required to keep the baby from bleeding out.

“It took a thousand blood donations” for that life-saving procedure, said Alanis, proudly noting Elliot is now a rambunctious kindergartner and in perfect health.

“In my job I used to get to hear all these amazing stories … and what I know now, nobody wants a reason to give blood but most people have one,” she told me on Thursday.

“It just takes one cancer diagnosis, one car accident, one non-normal birth.”

So why such a shortage now?

According to Alanis, blame COVID-19, which “shifted around so much of how we do things.”

For one thing, she said, the biggest source of blood donations comes from high schools and colleges which, since the pandemic, have not only been harder to get into, the students themselves are not signing up as before.

Campus blood drives once counted for 30% of all donations, but that number is now between 15% and 20%, she said, in part because when schools closed, it meant current upperclassmen missed out on older students alleviating fears and encouraging them to donate.

“It’s a fun event,” said Alanis, who recalls her own experiences at Larkin High School in Elgin, which at one time held four blood drives a year.

“It’s not needles and blood,” she said. “It really is a life-saving party.”

And, she noted, it is an educational experience that will more likely make these young people regular donors throughout their lives.

Of course schools aren’t the only places that went through a major shift because of COVID. With more people working remotely, businesses and corporations aren’t holding those annual blood drives at the office.

“Now people are working from home and not so apt to sign up,” said Alanis, which is unfortunate because those company drives send blood right back to our local hospitals, which rely on Versiti when inventory is low.

As the section chief of the blood bank at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva, Nancy Roxworthy’s job is to “take that inventory, not just in the morning but pretty much all day long.”

She too is extremely concerned.

There is especially a need for type O and B-negative blood, she told me. Plus, platelets “are well below target right now,” which is a particular concern for cancer patients, who have a higher risk of clotting disorders.

“People just got out of the habit” of donating, said Roxworthy, adding that summer vacations, Labor Day and the start of school only added to the problem, even as major surgeries have picked up and Kane County has seen a disturbing increase in serious vehicle crashes.

It doesn’t help that a lot of regular donors are getting older, another reason “we have to figure out more ways to get younger people involved,” she insisted.

Alanis said Versiti is doing that by finding more creative ways to get students involved, and by “working to get back into schools,” as well as into more businesses and churches.

“Most times, it is a community coordinator who is asking people to come to blood drives,” she said. “This is where we need to connect.”

Speaking of drives, the local hospitals I contacted are quite aware of the problem and hope that when people realize how critical the shortage has become, they will be motivated not only to donate during this emergency but continue to do so.

“We really do rely on blood donors for patient surgeries and for those coming through the ER. There is no more effective substitute,” said Dr. Lindsay Brackney, a hematology specialist and medical director of the blood bank at Elmhurst Hospital, which holds multiple employee blood drives a year.

As do other local hospitals. Rush Copley Medical Center spokesperson Courtney Satlak said that, so far in 2023, the staff at the Aurora hospital has donated enough blood “to potentially save more than 117 lives.”

Delnor in Geneva, by the way, has an employee drive scheduled for Sept. 27, but Roxworthy wanted to extend that invitation to others. To donate – then or at any time – call Versiti at 800-786-4483 or go online to schedule an appointment.

“It is easier than people think,” she said, adding that “the Versiti people are so professional, you can look away and not even know” they’ve started the process.

“The people whose lives can be saved are not those who live in other parts of the world,” Roxworthy continued. “It’s your community you are helping, including your family and friends.”

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