HOUSTON — Houston hospitals are in critical need of blood donations after the coronavirus pandemic left many banks struggling to find donors. It's a shortage that has many medical experts concerned, especially during these busy summer months.
"Summer is upon us and this is a time for family gathering and this is a time for us to engage in summertime activities — and that's good," Houston Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Persse said.
"It's also a time, unfortunately, when things go wrong, people go into accidents [...] we've had some serious car accidents, we've had shootings happen that people in up in the hospital and they need blood, and they desperately need blood."
A catastrophic incident could leave a single patient needing as much as 100 units of blood to survive, Persse said.
It's not just medical emergencies, the scheduling of elective surgeries that were postpone due to the pandemic are also a concern.
"'Elective' is a relative term," Persee added. "For the patients who were getting the tumor resections that they needed six months ago, these surgeries are very, very important."
Persse, Mayor Sylvester Turner and representatives from the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center discussed the domino effects of the blood shortage Wednesday while the City of Houston hosted a blood drive at city hall.
Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center, which supplies blood to more than 170 hospitals across 26 counties, has seen a record number of people donating in 2021. However, a spokesperson said it's still not enough, especially going into hurricane season, which can easily lead to the canceling of blood drives.
"Blood donations are critically needed now and throughout the summer to ensure the availability of blood for all blood types for patients that find themselves in need," the mayor said.
Some of the main obstacles with collecting blood donations have been the significant number of people still working remotely, students being out of school for the summers and misinformation about donating blood and the COVID-19 vaccine.
The mayor also addressed rumors that getting the COVID-19 vaccination means a person can't donate blood or that donating blood will lower the effectiveness of the vaccine.
It's simply not true.
Dr. Dirk Sostman, who is the chief academic officer at Houston Methodist and an expert who has done extensive research on vaccine development and side effects, confirmed this in a recent VERIFY.
"With the largest medical center in the word, it's vital we have enough blood supply for everyone that needs a blood transfusion," Turner said. "You never know when you'll be the person in need, so you need to donate whenever you can."