At the beginning of the year, the hospitals could only be supplied with blood to a limited extent. Now the snapshot for Lower Saxony, Bremen, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia looks better again.
The blood donation service of the German Red Cross has more reserves after a bottleneck at the beginning of the year. As head of department Markus Baulke announced for the federal states of Lower Saxony, Bremen, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, the stock is currently around 20,000 preparations. This means that there is security of supply for all blood groups.
At the beginning of January, only around 7,000 preparations were available, which meant that the clinics could only be supplied with some blood groups to a limited extent. According to the blood donation service, this problem has not existed since the end of January. In February, the needs of the clinics were below our expectations. In connection with the currently high willingness to donate, we were able to build up reserves, said Baulke.
According to the Red Cross, the bottleneck was due to a decline in blood donations in the last few months of 2022. Significantly more blood is now being donated again. However, a continuous flow of donations is still needed in order to take the reserves that have been built up into the low-volume months of April and May and to avoid further bottlenecks. Baulke emphasized that blood donations are still constantly needed.
In January and February, the Red Cross in Lower Saxony and Bremen counted an average of 108 blood donors per appointment. In the fourth quarter of 2022 there were only 82. The blood groups A positive and 0 positive have the lowest inventory.
