Blood drive at Twin Cities Community Hospital surpasses goal
Donations still needed during holiday season
– Twin Cities Community Hospital in Templeton held a blood drive with the Vitalant “bloodmobile” this week and not only collected 32 pints of blood – which was nine pints over the goal – and five of those pints were “Power Reds.”
According to Vitalant, “Power Red” donations have double the impact because the automated procedure collects a concentrated donation of red cells that can help twice as many patients as regular whole blood donations. These donations are especially helpful to trauma victims, surgery patients, newborn and pediatric patients, those with anemia, and sickle cell patients. Those with A- or B-negative blood, or with either positive or negative O-type blood are the best candidates for this type of donation.
Still, even if a person is not a candidate to provide a “Power Red” donation, each pint of blood potentially can save up to three lives – so the Blood Drive at Twin Cities could save up to 96 lives, according to Twin Cities.
Although the blood drive was successful, the county is still in great need of blood donations – especially this holiday season – so Tenet Health and Vitalant are asking the public to please sign up to save a life (or three) by donating blood: those interested can make an appointment by going to www.vitalant.org/donate.
