Parkland Hospital hosts blood drive as nation's blood supply hits 30-year low

Blood banks across the country are putting out a call for help. Many hospitals and organizations are seeing blood supplies drop to 30-year lows.

DALLAS - Blood banks across the country are putting out a call for help. Many hospitals and organizations are seeing blood supplies drop to 30-year lows.

While many aspects of life have started to bounce back from the pandemic, blood donation centers say they are still struggling.

Constance Parry is one of the few giving blood at Parkland Hospital’s blood drive Thursday.

"If you have the ability to give, it’s saving a life and it could be your life someday," she said.

Like many hospitals, Parkland is facing a critical blood shortage that is forcing the staff to make some tough decisions.

"We’ve had to postpone elective surgeries because a dire need, a person in dire need needed that blood," explained Monique Barksdale with Parkland Hospital.

The American Red Cross is also facing severe shortages, offering Amazon gift cards for the rest of this month and a raffle for free gas for a year to encourage people to donate.

This month, Carter BloodCare is offering a buy one, get one free deal on Rangers tickets.

Blood centers typically see drops in donations in the summer with school out and travel up, but the effects of the pandemic have made things more difficult.

Linda Goelzer with Carter BloodCare says they started seeing a downward trend about three months into the pandemic and it never really recovered.

"It's probably the lowest blood supply that we've seen nationwide in 30 years," she said.

For now, they are able to keep up with hospital orders but don’t have anything in reserve.

"We do need donors urgently because we were so far behind that we're still at that point where most of what comes in is going out within a day or two," Goelzer said.

Carter BloodCare is hoping as in-person classes pick back up in the fall, they will get their high school blood drives back up and running.

"High school blood drives make up about 25% or more of the annual collections. So if you're a teenager or a young person and you don't realize the power of life-saving that you have, you don't have to wait until school starts," Goelzer said.

Carter BloodCare has multiple blood donation centers across the metroplex that are open throughout the week to give. They’re also having a big event at this weekend’s battle of the badges in Frisco.

Interested donors can schedule an appointment online at ww2.greatpartners.org/donor/schedules/centers or text 800-366-2834]