ST. PAUL - Blood donor clinics remain an essential service across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure an adequate supply of blood products is available to meet the needs of patients. Thankfully, at a blood donor clinic held in St. Paul last Tuesday, there was no shortage of willing donors.
Canadian Blood Services territory manager Nicole Russell said the four-hour clinic held at the Rec. Centre collected 104 units of blood, exceeding its 96-unit target.
“Which is awesome,” Russell noted, adding, “St. Paul is one of our really strong communities that we typically attend with blood donor centres. We come about four times a year.” Russell said.
“We can always count on people in St. Paul to be there to donate.”
Asked about any additional screening of blood required given the pandemic, she said COVID-19 is not transmissible through blood and blood products.
“So, we are not currently testing for it because there is no Health Canada approved test to screen blood for COVID-19.”
However, the pandemic has made it necessary to implement increased safety measures beyond what have always been in place to ensure the safety of donors, employees, and volunteers at the clinics.
“The safety of our donors, staff and volunteers are a top priority, always has been,” Russell said.
Enhanced wellness measures including increased cleaning and sanitizing, personal protective equipment and physical barriers to limit face-to-face interaction as much as possible.
“Our donation beds, waiting chairs – they are all two metres apart. Employees and donors are to keep a two-metre distance where possible,” she said. “We have a wellness checkpoint, so before entering the location, donors have to complete a wellness questionnaire, answer some questions. They get their temperature taken and then if they pass all of those screenings, they are let into the building.”
Russell said all blood donations are by appointment only.
“You are not allowed walk-in donors right now. The reason for that is appointments help minimize the number of people in the donor centre, but is also allows people to complete a pre-screening questionnaire before they arrive at the donor centre so they can self-defer if necessary.”
Russell said Blood Services Canada has “been very lucky” throughout the pandemic with enough donors to ensure an adequate level of blood products has been received.
“We go day by day, so today there is enough fresh blood components in our inventory for patient needs,” she said. “But we do need all open appointments to be filled going forward to ensure that national supply meets patient needs because of the limited shelf life of blood products. We need people coming in all the time.”
The most common way people learn about a blood donor centre in their area is that they have attended a previous one and rebooked. However, people are also encouraged to go to Blood.ca where they can find out the schedule of upcoming clinics in their area.
The next clinic scheduled for St. Paul is June 8, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the St. Paul Rec. Centre.
