Red Cross Reports Low Blood Supply

An unusually severe seasonal blood shortage has left Los Angeles County’s supplies at levels estimated to be their worst in more than 20 years, officials at the Southern California’s Red Cross said.

Stocks of one type of blood were completely empty Tuesday morning at the Red Cross office in Koreatown. On Monday, at least four nonemergency surgeries at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Los Feliz were postponed for hours because blood was not available, according to Dr. Peter L. Page, chief executive of the American Red Cross Blood Services, Southern California Region.

“This is the worst shortage I’ve seen in Southern California,” Page said Tuesday during a news conference. “It has dragged on longer than others.” Supplies began to run low about one week before Christmas and dropped during the holidays.

Blood banks are typically in short supply at this time of year because during the holidays, people tend to make fewer donations. But this year, officials say that levels have been exceptionally low because of a severe flu season, which makes certain donors ineligible.

The American Red Cross’s emergency supply of blood is usually large enough to last three days. On Tuesday, it had 592 units on hand, about one-fifth of the nearly 3,000 units ordinarily stocked in the emergency reserves. They had no units of type O-positive blood, and three units of type O-negative.

Red Cross officials, who said they supply 90% of the blood for 125 of Los Angeles County’s 160 hospitals, explained that the unusually low supply is part of a nationwide shortage. Private blood supplies, as well as those of other branches of the Red Cross, are low, which makes the replenishment of Southern California’s supplies difficult.

Hospitals that treat the most serious cases have been hardest hit. At Kaiser, supplies are at 20% of normal levels. This poses problems for patients facing procedures such as open-heart surgery, which requires a large supply of blood.