This shortage could make it hard to help, but a new national initiative involving the Blood Connection is doing something about it.

Tidelands Health has added an extra resource to help increase its access to blood donations as the nation experiences an unprecedented shortage.  The health system has partnered with an additional supplier, The Blood Connection, to help keep blood supply coming to its facilities to help the treatment of patients.

The Blood Connection (TBC), a community blood center directly serving every Upstate hospital and more than 80 hospitals across the Carolinas and Georgia, announced Jan. 17 it is continuing to experience a critical need for blood donations, made worse by winter weather.

Blood banks are at a critical low point across Western North Carolina, where the Blood Connection says

the need is “unlike any other in TBC history.”

At various points during the coronavirus pandemic, North Carolina hospitals have faced shortages of masks, intensive care unit beds, COVID-19 antibody treatments and staff, particularly nurses. Now it’s blood that has reached a critical level. A decline in donations over the last year, coupled with a return of demand to pre-pandemic levels, has hospital blood banks operating on thin margins.

Western North Carolina is on the verge of a community blood crisis, according to The Blood Connection.  According to Katie Smithson, partnerships and media coordinator for TBC, the agency is experiencing a never-before-seen critical need for blood.