Kentucky Blood Center officials discuss need for donors
CORBIN, Ky. (WYMT) - Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted services like the Kentucky Blood Center.
“The pandemic kind of set us back there,” said Eric Lindsey, Kentucky Blood Center Media & Branding Director. “We weren’t able to get into high schools like we could, business dynamics changed.”
Lindsey said the pandemic also caused a shift in how people choose to donate blood.
”About 70 percent of the units we collected was through our mobile operations and 30 percent was through the donor centers,” he said. “The pandemic really changed that dynamic, for obvious reasons. For health and safety reasons, people just felt more comfortable coming in the centers.”
Through more convenient blood drives and new incentives, Lindsey added that things are looking up.
“Five months in, we have seen some encouraging signs post-pandemic that our donors are either starting to get back in the habit, either donors that we lost are coming back and we’re also seeing some donors that we haven’t seen before,” he said.
In 2022, the Tri-County Donor Center opened in Corbin because of how many committed donors that area has. On Tuesday, the facility will be celebrating its one-year anniversary.
”It’s been a successful first year,” Lindsey said. “We have collected more than 1,700 pints of blood and the way we split blood products, one pint saves up to three lives, so we’re talking potentially more than 5,000 lives that have been impacted just by this donor center alone.”
Tri-County Donor Center phlebotomist Sheena Saylor said she has seen the impact that blood donations can have firsthand.
Saylor’s daughter, Megan, lives with a rare blood disorder called Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP).
”When you come here and you spend that 30, 45 minutes to do something, yeah, its unpleasant, but you’re saving people, and it’s not just the person that that donation is going to directly, its saving a lot of people,” Saylor said. “Those people who donated to save my daughter, that saved me. That saved her dad, her brother, her sister; we would have been lost without her.”
If you are looking for a mobile blood donation site, the WYMT Blood Drive will be taking place Tuesday outside of the station from 3:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The Pikeville Donor Center is also encouraging people to donate blood on Tuesday to receive free tickets to Kings Island.
To find more information on how or where you can donate blood, click here.
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