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Only a two-day supply on hand
BY TOM HESTER SR.
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
New Jersey has less than a two-day supply of blood for trauma care, a critical issue, and state Health and Senior Services Commissioner Mary E. O’Dowd on Monday will ask New Jerseyans to help solve the problem.
State health officials said Friday that blood donations go to help people facing surgeries, organ transplants, cancer patients and accident victims.
The blood shortage is forcing the state to import nearly 50,000 units of blood. Nine out of 10 people will need blood at some point in their lives.
And 60 percent of New Jersey adults are eligible to donate blood; only 3.6 percent do so. If New Jerseyans increased donations to the national average of 5 percent, the state would have a self-sustaining blood supply.
O’Dowd will discuss the blood shortage with reporters Monday at a blood drive at Virtua Memorial Hospital in Mount Holly. She will be joined by New Jersey Hospital Association President and CEO Betsy Ryan and Virtua CEO Rich Miller.
A list of Blood Donation Centers and Hospital Blood Collection Sites is available at:
http://www.state.nj.us/health/njsave3lives/centers.shtml or http://www.state.nj.us/health/njsave3lives/hospitals.shtml
For more information on New Jersey’s chronic blood shortage visit:
