Daily Bruin File Photo Khatcho
Shahnazarian accepts a blood donation from Judy
Schoop at a blood drive in Ackerman Union last February.
The Los Angeles community is suffering from a shortage of blood
donations.
By Kelly Rayburn
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The blood centers at the UCLA Medical Center and the Harbor-UCLA
Medical Center in Torrance are experiencing summertime blood
shortages, according to employees in both offices.
“We’re just barely keeping up,” said Barbara
Willahan, the supervisor of the UCLA blood center. Despite the
shortage, no surgeries  at the UCLA medical center have been
canceled, she added.
But the situation is different outside. Los Angeles area
shortages are only part of a nationwide blood shortage, which has
reportedly caused many non-emergency surgeries to be postponed.
While blood supply is increasingly limited, blood is in greater
demand as medical technology advances and more surgeries are taking
place.
And the L.A. areas surrounding UCLA may be worse off than other
places.
Southern California is hit harder by blood shortages than other
regions of the country, like the Midwest, Willahan said,
because many of these areas do not have the large medical centers
that Los Angeles does.
Willahan said the number of donors at UCLA is down in part
because school is not in full session, and many people don’t
have time, or are not here, to donate in the summer.
“We don’t have our students as much and we
don’t have our employees here as much either,” she
said.
Meanwhile Dorothy Sorja, a medical technologist at the
Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, acknowledging the current shortage,
said she has seen similar occurrences in the past.
“I’ve been here 13 years and this has probably
happened every year,” she said. “It’s part of the
normal cycle.”
But Willahan said the current shortage is more than just a
seasonal down-turn.
Typically blood shortages are common when people are busy around
the Fourth of July, Labor Day and the winter holidays. But Willahan
said usually the number of donors picks up this time of year, after
a brief decline early in the month.
“This year we’re not seeing a recovery,” she
said.
The increasing number of qualifications a donor must meet before
giving blood limits the field of potential donors. Increasing
qualifications may be contributing to current shortages, Willahan
said.
“Each time you develop new criteria, you eliminate a new
percentage of potential donors,” she said.
Currently the Food and Drug Administration, concerned that
diseases related to foot and mouth disease could spread via blood
transfusion, is taking steps to eliminate potential donors who have
spent a certain amount of time in England and other European
countries where the disease is prevalent.
Both Willahan and Sorja said type O blood, which unlike other
blood types, can be given to anyone in case of emergencies, is
particularly needed.
People wishing to donate blood can contact the UCLA medical
center blood bank at 310-825-0888 or the Harbor-UCLA blood bank at
310-222-2148.