SAN ANTONIO – There is a consistent need for blood donations in and around our community.
We have seen people step up and help, but the need persists.
Roger Ruiz with South Texas Blood and tissue Center joined Leading SA this weekend to talk about the need and how you can help.
“This morning when I took a look, we probably are at a three-day supply here locally of all blood types. We probably have a day and a half right now of O. All that is great. And it’s moving in the right direction. There are times when we’ve seen it where it’s less than a day... So the need is still there. We still need people to come in, especially as we approach the holidays. We know we’re going to see a decline in donations as schools are on break and our frequent donors are on vacation, which supply about 30 to 35% of our blood in these high schools and colleges,” Ruiz said.
These donations help people across our region in a number of different ways.
Your donation can help anyone who needs care, from pediatric cancer patients to pregnancies.
“We cover a big area here in South Texas, and we’re 48 counties, over 100 hospitals and clinics that we serve. And 30% of the blood that is donated actually a little bit over 30% goes to actually cancer patients, cancer patients in that area. And that’s because they need multiple units to keep their blood levels high enough, their platelet levels count high enough to continue their treatment, either radiation and chemotherapy. And so we know a lot of that big portion goes to cancer patients, but also people with disorders of blood disorders like sickle cell anemia, people who are premature babies who need help, mothers who are just delivering and having complications. The list goes on and on and who needs blood,” Ruiz said.
Right now, South Texas Blood and Tissue Center is partnering with Big Love Cancer Care to make a bigger impact.
“Big love, Cancer Care reached out to us and said, hey, we wanted to partner with you to see how we could not only impact blood donations but help pediatric cancer patients in our area. And we said, yeah, definitely so what we’ve done is we’re letting donors that were impacted make a double impact in the community by not only donating blood and saving lives, but also when you donate, you also receive points or what we call donor rewards. And those donor rewards, you can go back into the donor store there in southtexasblood.org and donate those points back to big love cancer care where they are going to have an event this December where they’re going to be giving away toys to these pediatric cancer patients,” Ruiz said.
You can sign up and learn more about BLOOD DONATIONS HERE.