Graig MantleAfter a push for blood donations to cover the Fourth of July weekend, United Blood Services of the Central Coast is running critically low on blood supplies, and is currently at risk of not having enough on its shelves to see patients through the summer.
“In San Luis the blood bank relies heavily on students for donations,” said Donor Relations Specialist for United Blood Services Brinn Baker, 22.
The dependence United Blood Services has on students is felt heavily over the summer, when the majority of student donors abandon the area just as demand for blood increases due to more people traveling.
“Over the summer people have more of a tendency to be reckless and get themselves in accidents,” Baker said.
Accidents resulting from too much fun-in-the-sun add to the already demanding need for blood by patients undergoing medical treatments such as organ transplants, open heart surgery, and cancer treatments.
When Baker visited summer classes to advertise Wednesday’s blood drive, “every single person knew someone who had cancer,” she said.
Baker has made donating blood a habit since she was eligible at 17, largely because her cousin was diagnosed with leukemia and needed blood when Baker was still too young to donate.
An A-positive blood type, Baker currently donates blood every 56 days, the required amount of time between donations.
Wednesday’s on-campus blood drive, which ran on Mott Lawn from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., attracted 52 student and faculty donors.
Baker was expecting to receive about 30 donations from Cal Poly students, which she described as a good number during summer drives.
Mechanical engineering senior Ian Journey said he feels giving blood is “a social responsibility that not enough people do.”
He said he tries to donate, usually at Cal Poly, as often as possible.
Biology senior Claudia Galvis donates every time the blood bank calls. She has an in-demand blood type, A-positive, and knows her blood is needed.
“In case I lose some blood elsewhere, I know someone is dong the same for me,” she said.
Each day, approximately 270 people are needed to donate blood across the Central Coast in order to fulfill the United Blood Services’ demand, according to the organization’s Web site.
This has not been the trend during recent weeks.
In an effort to increase blood donations in San Luis Obispo County, Doc Burnstein’s Ice Cream Lab of Arroyo Grande is participating in a “Pint for Pint” campaign. The store is giving each donor a gift certificate, good for one pint of ice cream, now through August 11.
O blood types are especially encouraged to donate, as O-positive and O-negative supplies were listed as “critically low” on United Blood Services’ Web site Tuesday.
O-positive blood runs through 37 percent of the population’s veins, which can be used by any patient with a positive blood type. Although O-positive is the most common blood type, O-positive donors can only receive O-positive or O-negative blood, which creates even more demand for that type.
The more rare O-negative blood can be given to any patient, but O-negative donors can only receive their own blood type, carried by a mere six percent of the population.
Cal Poly donors were treated to a taste of the Doc’s ice cream while waiting to give blood Wednesday.
Future campaign plans to encourage people to donate include $9 gift certificates from Mother’s Tavern in San Luis Obispo.