About LMHS Blood Banks

Blood donation is a voluntary, walk-in service. Regular donations will take about 30 minutes to complete. donors may credit groups or civic organizations with their donation.

Other programs include (appointments necessary for these):

• Autologous: This is a process whereby a patient who has a scheduled surgery provides beforehand his or her own blood to be used during the surgery. The patient's physician prescribes this procedure. A type of autologous transfusion is called intra-operative salvage. A specialized machine, commonly called a "cell-saver," recovers blood lost from the operative area, spins it, washes it in a saline solution, filters it and pumps it into an infusion bag for return to the patient. Blood recovery systems often eliminate the need for banked blood. Cell saver equipment is used at all three LMHS hospitals: Cape Coral Hospital has two machines; Lee Memorial Hospital and HealthPark Medical Center each have six machines.

• Apheresis: a single product platelet donation. This takes about 2 hours.

• Therapeutics: some therapies (eg: hemochromatosis) require bleeding. The blood center has these services.

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