The New Zealand Blood Service is appealing for more blood donations with the country’s supply of A+ blood at critical levels.
One person will need blood or blood products every 18 minutes in New Zealand – or 83 Kiwis per day.
“Currently, we’re sitting on four days’ worth of stock for A+ blood and that means they’re at critical levels. Where we like to see the blood stock is at 10 days,” New Zealand Blood’s Asuka Burge told Breakfast.
“The past week, we’ve seen a 19% over average demand for A+ blood, so there’s been a huge spike and that’s why we’re calling on people to donate.”
Stocks of A+ blood have dwindled following three recent emergency surgeries, and the Covid-19 pandemic has made it more difficult to donate.
“We certainly are concerned. We want to see those stock levels coming back up and we watch this on a daily basis,” she said.
Maria Fitzpatrick received blood after she was in a serious car crash last year.
“It was pretty bad. I was lucky to survive it and at one stage, they said to me, ‘Oh, we’re going to have to give you some blood units,’” she said.
“I don’t know what the outcome would have been for me without it but they said at that stage, it was essential.”
More than 4000 blood donations are needed each week to meet demand.
The blood service is calling on Kiwis to donate regardless of their blood type, however.
“We’re actually watching O+ and O- blood at the same time as well, and the reason why is that A+ and O+ are the most common blood groups.”
One blood donation can save up to three lives.
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