Actually, there should always be 90 canned goods. At least that is the declared goal of the Ebersberg district clinic in terms of their stock of blood donations, as transfusion manager and deputy medical director Peter Lemberger explains. On this day, however, there are only 74 – almost 18 percent are missing from the desired target. The iron reserve of blood units of blood group zero-negative, which is acceptable for all donation recipients, has meanwhile shrunk from six to five. But Lemberger remembers the times when there were eight. “We now often have a bad feeling because the reserves are just very tight,” he says. What does this mean for medical care and emergency capacities in the Ebersberg district?
Lemberger emphatically gives the all-clear before a scenario: there is always enough donated blood available for emergencies, such as accident victims. “No one needs to be afraid that there is nothing for him or her at the moment.” However, and this is also part of the truth, he doesn’t have a crystal ball either. As a rule, more accidents happen in summer than in the colder months, while experience has shown that the number of blood donors is declining. In addition, this has fallen since Corona anyway. This trend is even stronger this year than last year, says Lemberger. He can only speculate about the reasons for this. “On the one hand, there may be a current increase in demand due to Corona and the catching up of postponed operations, but people are also catching up on vacation trips and are generally on the road a lot more – so many people may not have time to donate blood.”
In the district of Ebersberg, the willingness to donate is above average
Demand from Günter Obergrusberger, BRK on-call manager: Are people becoming lazy about donations? Not in the district of Ebersberg. In fact, the opposite trend can be observed here. A total of 449 people attended the two most recent donation days at the end of June. 82 first-time donors were among them, twice as many as usual. The Ebersbergers’ willingness to donate is not only at a historic high among the newcomers, says Obergrussberger. “Otherwise there are an average of between 400 and 420” – that is 30 to 50 fewer donors.
Obergrußberger suspects that Ebersberg could be in an even better position if those who did not show up despite being registered canceled their appointments in good time. About ten percent of the registrations have expired on the past donation days. That’s a good 20 appointments a day. “So far we’ve been able to compensate for this with those willing to donate who came without registering,” says Obergrussberger. But if, independently of this, the said ten percent would actually donate or free up their place for another donor, one or two additional liters of blood would certainly come together.
Nevertheless: “Ebersberg is a real donor hotspot.” Obergrussberger suspects that the possibility of booking appointments, which was introduced with the pandemic, is a possible reason why the Ebersbergers are increasingly donating. “We have 20 different time slots, for each of which ten registrations are possible,” he says. As a result, the waiting time is reduced to a minimum – instead of taking two hours, as in the past, a donation appointment is now over in about 15 minutes. “It’s very comfortable.”
The central blood bank reports a shortage of supplies
The fact that the large amount of Ebersberger blood obviously does not arrive at the Ebersberger district clinic is due to the distribution system. The donated blood comes to the laboratory, where it is broken down into its components and tested for various diseases and pathogens, such as HIV. If there are no abnormalities, the blood preparations are filled into blood preserves and sent to the central blood bank. Clinics and medical practices report their needs there and are supplied. “But if the blood bank doesn’t have enough stocks to meet all orders, then there’s just a little less for everyone,” explains Obergrussberger.
And that is exactly the case at the moment. “It has also happened that we had to postpone operations by a few hours or a day because we didn’t have enough blood in stock,” says Peter Lemberger from the district clinic. He emphasizes that an enormous number of patient groups depend on blood donations: This is not only the case in serious accidents with large blood loss, but also in complex operations such as hip or knee prostheses, tumor or intestinal operations, in leukemia as well as in patients with internal bleeding or stomach ulcers. Every year, 1,500 to 2,000 patients have to be treated with red blood cell preparations in the Ebersberg hospital. That’s five patients a day.
The next blood donation appointments are on August 24th and 25th in Ebersberger BRK-Haus, Zur Gass 5, from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. An overview of all upcoming dates is online at www.blutspendedienst.com/blutspendetermine viewable. You can register there or with the “Blood Donation” app.