TOWN AND COUNTRY — Dr. Michael Mauney, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Missouri Baptist Medical Center, can’t recall the blood supply ever being this low.
“I’ve been here 22 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it,†Mauney said.
Hospitals like his are being asked to care for patients with less than half of what is typically on their storage shelves, he said.
The and other blood centers on Jan. 10 that the nation is facing a blood crisis — the worst shortage in more than a decade.
At times, as much as one-quarter of hospitals’ blood needs are not being met and doctors are being forced to make difficult decisions about who gets blood transfusions and who must wait, the Red Cross said.
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“It has been a challenge for blood supply in the area and across the nation for several months, and just in the last few weeks, got to an even worse situation with us getting to having less than a day’s supply of blood on the shelves at some points,†said Sharon Watson with the American Red Cross of Missouri and Arkansas.
“The ideal is to have a five-day supply,†she said.
The Red Cross supplies about 40% of the nation’s donated blood and 80% of the blood to the ºüÀêÊÓƵ area, Watson said.
Blood has a limited shelf life, and can only be stored for 42 days. Keeping that supply replenished requires a constant supply of donors. But, with the hyper-infectious omicron coronavirus variant pushing COVID-19 cases to the highest point in the two-year-old pandemic, donor turnout declined. Some people became infected; many more chose to stay home or limit their activities to avoid getting sick.
Complicating things further, the COVID-19 surge also has taken a toll on staff, forcing some blood drives to cancel because large numbers of workers are out sick or having to quarantine.
A major source of blood donations are college and high school blood drives, but those have dropped 62% due to the pandemic. Winter is also a time when other illnesses and weather typically prevent people from donating.
In addition, some people are confused about after getting a COVID-19 infection or getting vaccinated. People with COVID-19 must refrain from donating until 14 days after either a positive test or their symptoms resolve. People who received a vaccine dose don’t have to wait to donate.
“So, when you bring all these factors together, it makes of problem for blood donations,†Watson said.
Kirby Winn is with , which provides blood products to more than 125 hospitals in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri, including HSHS Illinois hospitals in the Metro East and SSM Health hospitals in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ area.
Winn said a consistent rate of 3,600 donations per week would be optimal. Over the past month, however, the rate has been about a third lower than that, ranging from 2,500 to 2,800 donations per week, Winn said.
“We’ve experienced temporary, seasonal declines in the rate of blood donation before,†he said, “but what’s different now is seeing more people temporarily sidelined with a COVID-19 infection or recent exposure.â€
Encouraging donations
Some donors have already stepped up and responded to the blood centers’ warning earlier this month.
Between noon and 7 p.m. on Thursday, all 900 appointments were filled for the 15th annual ºüÀêÊÓƵ Blood Drive, held by the Red Cross at nine locations in Missouri and Illinois. Participants in the popular event received a free Blues T-shirt.
“We are so thrilled to see the turnout of ºüÀêÊÓƵ-area blood donors with this blood drive because there is a critical need right now and everyone responded to that need,†Watson said. “That is an amazing thing to see.â€
Over the next month, however, about 64% of donation appointments in the region remain unfilled, Watson said.
To spur donations, anyone who donates blood with the Red Cross in January can register to win a trip to Los Angeles to see Super Bowl LVI or a home theater package and $500 gift card.
The ºüÀêÊÓƵ Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, made up of the ºüÀêÊÓƵ region’s major hospital systems, addressed the blood shortage during its weekly update on Tuesday as yet another stressor to hospitals operating at or over capacity.
“There is a critical blood shortage in the region, and challenges in the supply chain continue to threaten different aspects of care that are important for our citizens,†said Dr. Clay Dunagan with BJC HealthCare and co-director of the task force.
SSM Health officials also issued a statement warning that the shortage could cause delays in care while hospitals work to preserve the current supply for emergency situations.
Dr. Bruce Hall, chief medical officer for BJC HealthCare, which includes Missouri Baptist Medical Center, said the hospital system has not experienced a situation where a patient has suffered because blood was not available.
“But that’s the kind of thing we do worry about. We worry about getting to that point sometime, and obviously none of us wants to get there,†Hall said.
Postponing surgeries
Doctors are postponing whatever surgeries they can that might require a blood transfusion, he said, and instituting other conservation methods such as giving patients one unit of blood at a time, and monitoring them to see if they can do without more.
“We just sort of double down on being super careful about every decision we make,†Hall said.
Mauney said heart surgery departments like his are among the biggest users of blood supply products. Most heart surgeries cannot be delayed, so staff is trying to schedule them carefully.
“We have to think which patients are most likely to need blood, and are we doing them on the same day as other patients who might need a lot of blood,†Mauney said. “We’ll schedule them on different days.â€
Some patients, he said, can also get by with less blood during surgery and still safely recover with temporary anemia, a condition in which there are too few red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen to the body’s tissues.
What worries him is what they can’t plan: Someone coming to the emergency room with a ruptured aorta at the same time an emergency transfusion is needed in the intensive care unit.
“It’s emergencies that scare us the most,†Mauney said.
BJC’s Hall pointed out that at the same time hospitals are dealing with about half the supply of blood products they normally receive, they have also reduced elective surgeries by about 50% during the omicron surge to conserve space and staff.
“If we are seeing blood shortages now, what is going to happen when those activities come back up?†Hall said. “That is the concern.â€
Mauney said the quick and intense surge in COVID-19 patients has filled beds and further decimated an already dwindling and worn-out staff, threatening access to health care in ways never seen.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to take care of people without the space, without a healthy and rested staff and without critical medicine — blood,†he said.
In addition to getting vaccinated and taking other precautions to prevent getting infected with COVID-19, donating blood is something people can do to alleviate stress on hospitals and health care workers.
“The public can’t do much about an ICI bed or ICU nurse that can’t come to work, but they can do something to help by giving blood,†Mauney said. “And it can have an immediate impact.â€