Critical shortage of blood to help patients

The dwindling number of blood donors has resulted in the critical decline in the levels of life-saving blood stock to up to two days' stock, with some provinces having less than one day's stock.

According to the South African National Blood Services, the hardest hit provinces are Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal (0.9 days) and KwaZulu-Natal at just one day's supply.

Spokesperson Vanessa Raju said though they received massive support from donors last year, there was a massive decline in donations in the first week of January, with stock declining to below two days' supply.

She said this was significantly lower than the five days blood stock required to meet the national demand, saying they will have to collect 3000 units of blood everyday.

“When blood stocks get to below 2 days and the public is still not responding , then we implement cut-backs and this is when doctors may order 4 pints for a patient and we may only be able to provide 2 to ensure that what is available can go a longer time,” she said.

Raju said if the situation worsens, they will have to inform hospitals to postpone all planned medical procedures as they will not be able to deal with arising complications.

“The demand is still in space of terminally ill patients and gynaecological complications, where most of the blood is needed,” she said.

Raju said they had a steady increase in number of donors in all race groups, with 426 000 donors on their database, but said they were all not active donors.

“Some may have stopped donating due to illnesses , others just donate once and not again,” she said.

She said blood shortages over festive seasons was often not due to road accidents but because of many people not donating, so there is a demand but no supply.

Information gleaned from the SANBS's 2013/14 annual report show that 798 985 blood donations were made, of which 782 486 were for whole blood, in eight provinces.

This yielded 802 807 units and 164 658 litres of blood plasma supplied to the National Bioproducts Institute.

In July and August, the blood bank received 5 887 donations-a record number attributed to the Mandela Day blood drives-when collection reached a day's stock level of over seven days for the first time since its inception as a national service in 2001.

However, retrenchments and protracted strikes, particularly in the North West platinum belt, had a negative impact on collections.

The blood service has decided to appoint blood conservation officers to be posted at seven large hospitals where preliminary findings pointed to 8% of fresh blood going to waste at these hospitals.