Heroic donors from across the north-east who answered a last-minute call for blood have helped the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) “weather the storm” of last week’s freezing conditions.
The service put out an emergency appeal for donors from Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire to give blood after the Beast from the East severely impacted vital supplies across the country.
The supplies gathered were a godsend to hospitals across the country, many of which were faced with low stock due to donors being unable to travel to donation centres.
Moira Carter, associate director of donor services for the SNBTS, praised the kindness shown by the north-east community at a special donation session held on Sunday.
She said: “Last week, we were targeting around 3,300 blood donors across Scotland but at the end of the day, because of the impact of the weather, that down to just 2,200 donor.
“That equated to a 26% drop in our blood supplies, compared to normal levels.
“As Aberdeen was less affected by the weather compared to the central belt, donors in the north-east were in a much better position to help out.
“I would really like to thank everyone that came into the Aberdeen donor centre in response to our last-minute session on Sunday.
“At that session, we hoped for 90 donors, but we were absolutely overwhelmed at the response.
“We had 119 people make heroic efforts to brave the snow and come in, among them around 37 O-negative donors, which is completely amazing.
“O-negative can be given to anyone in an emergency and that’s why it is so special.”
The unique characteristics of the blood are particularly important for places such as neonatal units.
The north east donors of such rare and valuable blood therefore made a huge difference.
Moira added: “Hospitals in the central belt were able to better weather the storm of the Beast from the East thanks to donors like the ones in Aberdeen, who helped us to replenish the stock we ran low on because of the weather.”
The focus of the SNBTS is now to rebuild supplies and get blood stocks back to normal levels.
Anyone who can help with that challenge is asked to visit www.scotblood.co.uk and sign up.
