Individuals who donated their blood Tuesday can expect it to be in someone else?s body by today ? that?s how critical the shortage is, according to Army personnel.
“They?re waiting on it now,” said Marcus Travis, a phlebotomist with the armed services blood drive Tuesday at Fort Meade in Anne Arundel.
“We?ve got people coming over from Iraq to military hospitals every day.”
The armed services blood program comes to Fort Meade every two months, which is the recovery time for a person who has donated. The goal is to collect 50 to 100 donations.
“We get it from the military community, and it stays in the military community,” said Tamara Leonards, operations manager for the program.
“Or else we have to buy it from the Red Cross, and that can get costly.”
Red Cross officials said they charge the military less than other customers at $184 per unit of blood and $45 for fresh frozen plasma.
But the cost of buying blood could keep funding from other military needs, Travis said.
“The bottom line is that across the nation, we are in desperate short supply of fresh blood and the Red Cross has to get their funding somehow too,” said Laurie Cummings, 46, a routine donor who is commander of the Fort Meade medical treatment facility.
Donated blood is viable for 42 days, giving the military enough time to distribute it among military hospitals, such as Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C., and to send it overseas to troops with critical injuries, Leonards said.
Due to heavy screening, most of the blood collected is usable and rarely tests positive for any diseases that would force the military to toss the donation.
“A lot of people can?t donate blood because of the places they?ve been, but I haven?t been deployed,” said Alicia Borlik, 38, of Laurel, an Army reservist.
“Around the holidays, I think about all the people away from their families and in harm?s way, so this is the least I can do.”
Fast facts
» Military hospitals each day use about 75 blood products, including red cells, white cells, platelets, immunoglobulins, clotting factors and plasma.
» O negative blood is the universal donor.
» AB positive blood is the universal platelet donor.
