Amid nationwide blood shortage, North Idaho College hosts first drive of 2022

Three prominent health care associations closed out 2021 with a call for more blood donors in response to historically low levels seen by blood bank inventories nationwide.

The joint statement – released in December by the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies, America’s Blood Centers and the American Red Cross – indicated that some blood centers were reporting less than a one-day’s supply of blood, “a dangerously low level.”

The groups made the call in reference to the holiday season, a time when blood donation rates typically decrease due to travel, weather and seasonal illnesses. Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of cases with the omicron variant, illness has been of particular concern.

“If the nation’s blood supply does not stabilize soon, life-saving blood may not be available for some patients when it is needed,” the statement read.

For their part, North Idaho College campus community members answered the call last week with their first blood drive of the year.

The college’s Student Nursing Association hosted the drive Tuesday, Jan. 25 at the main Coeur d’Alene campus, receiving donations from 29 donors. The association partnered with Vitalant, a nonprofit blood services organization.

Donors included 13 people who were new to the Vitalant system, according to the college.

“It was a great drive,” said Aubrey Hermann, a Vitalant blood center coordinator who helped organize the North Idaho College event, “and many of the faculty and students were glad to see us back on campus and to participate in such a critical community event.”

Blood shortages have hit Idaho particularly hard.

Hospitals in much of the southern half of the state entered crisis standards of care last week partly because of dangerously low inventories of blood products used in transfusions, surgeries and other treatments, according to the Associated Press. The hospitals are also contending with staff shortages caused by COVID-19 cases.

Hermann said in a statement the North Idaho College drive supplied enough blood to benefit 81 individuals.

She added that the drive also netted four “double red” donations, which can be used for pediatric patients, trauma or surgery patients or patients with anemia.

“It gives you more compassion when you’re on the other side,” said Kaylie Higbee, a first-time donor and first-year nursing student at North Idaho College, said in a release, “because you’ll know what your patients are going through.”

Sharon Funkhouser, faculty advisor for the Student Nursing Association, said the group hopes to continue to host regular blood drives after a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Participating in the blood drive is so incredibly important on multiple levels,” Funkhouser said.