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O Negative Needed
September 11, 2008 |
If it wasn’t for life saving blood transfusions, more than 4.5
Million Americans would die each year. Right now there is no substitute for
human blood. The only way to keep up the supply is through donations.
Nancy Hendrick works with the Blood Centers of Lee Memorial Health System. “We
need all types of blood all the time because all of the negs are hard to come
by.” One blood type that’s particularly hard to come by is O negative.
Unfortunately O negative has more potential than any other blood type when it
comes to helping most people.
Nancy says, “O neg is always the one that we’re looking for; it’s the universal
donor. It can go to anybody’s blood type. Say somebody comes in saying that they
have a trauma or some type of surgery and they didn’t do their blood type yet o
negative is the first one that’s going to be distributed out. That’s why it’s so
hard to hold onto the inventory of o-negs.”
Nancy adds the only way to keep the inventory of blood well stocked is to
recruit more consistent donors. “We ask for community support. If they’re O
negative to please continue donating on a consistent basis. If we had more of
our o-negative donors donating consistently that would probably help out a lot.”
Blood donors must be at least 16-years-old, weigh at least 110 pounds and be in
good general health. The Lee Memorial Bloodmobiles are out in the community
seven days a week, ready to welcome new and regular donors. While anyone can
receive a transfusion of O negative blood, a person whose blood type is O
negative can only receive that particular type. |
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