Lifeblood's urgent call for blood donations due to increased hospital demand
Lifeblood has issued an urgent call for donations, with blood supplies now critically low due to the highest hospital demand in a decade. The organisation says without a boost in coming days, reserve stocks will fall to their lowest levels for the year.
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00:00 Helen Belphanti is positive by nature and blood type.
00:06 I'd been meaning to come back and give blood for a while and I thought why not, no time like the present.
00:11 So I hopped in the car and here I am.
00:13 Hers is the sort of attitude Australian Red Cross Lifeblood needs to see more of, a lot more.
00:19 Ideally we're hoping people will come and donate this week to help us prevent a shortage next week.
00:25 With demand from hospitals its highest in a decade and fewer regular donors across the country,
00:31 the organisation has issued an urgent appeal in an effort to fill all empty seats.
00:36 There will never be a case where a donor requiring blood urgently will miss out.
00:42 It may just be a question of the less urgent people may have to wait a moment.
00:49 Some 8,000 additional blood donations are needed nationally this week, including 30 in the ACT.
00:56 Each donation saving up to three lives.
00:59 Not bad for a Monday morning, that's right.
01:02 If you're eligible, please come forward and consider giving blood. It is a vitally important time.
01:09 Fortunately donor centres haven't been impacted by the infectious triple whammy of influenza, COVID-19
01:16 and respiratory syncytical virus currently spreading through Canberra and further afield.
01:22 We're finding people aren't cancelling because of that reason. There's just a lack of habit.
01:30 29 COVID-positive patients were in Canberra hospitals last week with 146 new cases detected by PCR,
01:38 up from 75 the week before. Four people died from the virus.
01:43 The Territory has recorded more than 600 flu cases and more than 1,000 cases of RSV so far this year.
01:50 year.
01:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]