The American Red Cross declared a national blood supply crisis in late July, only the second time in the organization’s history. The first was in January 2022. WMRA’s Ayse Pirge spoke with local blood banks about how our region has been impacted, and filed this report.
GREGORY MOORE: You usually see a slump during the summer, simply because people are on vacation … but this summer seems to have been worse than the ones in the past. And blood donations were at a critical low.
Gregory Moore is a blood banker at Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville – meaning he’s a medical professional who collects, separates, and stores blood for transfusions. He has been in the laboratory field for more than 40 years. Moore says they have not experienced –
MOORE: Any impactful situations here within our facility. One of the strengths of being part of the Sentara group … is that we can move blood around our hospitals, you know, one hospital to the other, and to be honest, we also cooperate with UVa and other hospitals if need be. So, we kind of have a, a little bit of a backup distribution…