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Melanie Cole, MS (Host): A blood donation is truly a gift of life that a healthy individual can give to others who are sick or injured. My guest today is Cindy Martin. She’s the administrative director of clinical laboratory and pathology services at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Cindy, I'm so glad to have you joining us today. As somebody who donates blood every chance that I get and platelets as well, I have a passion for this topic. I’d like you start with a little physiology lesson for people that don’t know. How much blood do we have in our body?

Cindy Martin MBA, CLS (Guest): Well, Melanie, depending on your size, we have approximately seven to nine liters of blood in your body. Your bone marrow is constantly replacing those red cells that you make in your body.

Host: Tell us about giving blood. Why is it so important and how badly does the country need blood right now?

Cindy: Well, right now the American Red Cross actually just issued a statement saying that they had a severe shortage. We have a need for blood constantly. You know, I often see people after disaster lining up to donate blood. What we really need—That is all good. I would never turn anyone away for that, but what we really need is somebody who consistently donates every eight weeks or so to replenish the blood supply in the United States. Because we often run into this situation—especially around holidays or right now graduations, summer’s starting, summer vacations—where people just don’t think to donate. So we are stuck in these situations several times a year where we don’t have the blood supply that we need in the whole of the United States. So it’s a very severe situation when you have people out in their cars. They have traumas happening all the time. People coming in using massive amounts of blood a little bit more often than in other times of the year. We may not have that on hand. So it’s so important that people think to donate whenever they can.

Host: Tell us what it’s like when someone donates blood. How much blood do you take and how long does it take to donate?

Cindy: Well, it takes probably about half an hour. You have to go about a half an hour before that to fill out the documentation. If you're just giving a regular unit of blood, it’s about the size of say two cups. A little bit more. 500 milliliters. Then that gets separated into several different blood components that can be given and help two or three people. You just answer the questionnaire. They do your hemoglobin and hematocrit level, meaning how many red cells do you have in your body, and make sure that you're healthy and ready to donate before they actually collect the unit. After that, after everything’s sterile, everything manned by nurses, they take the unit of blood. About half an hour later, you're ready to go.

Host: Who can donate and who cannot donate, Cindy, because sometimes people get turned away and they're not sure why. So who do you say can come in and donate. Tell us why there might be reasons somebody might not be able to.

Cindy: Right. So anybody who is over 110 pounds and 17 or older. You can donate if you're 16 with parental consent in California. You have to be feeling well that day. Not have any signs of illness or flu. Of course, you don’t want to donate more than 56 days apart. So you want to give your body time to remake those red cells. So every eight weeks or so you can donate. There are a number of infectious diseases that we want to be screening for and make sure that they don’t get into the blood supply.

Although we test these units for infectious diseases as well, we have the questionnaire before you donate that will let us know if there’s any risk factors. So if you've been out of the country in an area that might have malaria, for instance, you wouldn’t donate for six months after that. There’s other situations. You know if you’ve been exposed to anybody who had hepatitis or who would possibly be in a high risk category. That would also—Like if you got a tattoo, for instance, you might have to wait a year to donate after that. So there’s several questions on the questionnaire that will kind of tell you whether you can donate or not. They screen that very closely. That’s a very important part of the screening process for donation.

Host: Certain places that you’ve travelled abroad make you ineligible as well, yes?

Cindy: That is correct. There was a time when—especially if you’ve been a resident of a country. For instance, I lived in Spain in the 80s. During that time, there was the Mad Cow Disease issue that was over there. So for that reason, I cannot donate. I do everything I can to try to recruit people to donate, but unfortunately that’s my situation where if you're another country, certain countries—especially Europe during a certain time frame—they don’t allow you to donate because of the risk of disease at that time.

Host: Do you get to find out your blood type from donating, Cindy? How do we know what type of blood we have if you need certain types of blood? Can you use blood donation to find out if you have any diseases? Do people do that, or did they use to do that?

Cindy: Well, let me address that first because that’s very important. You never want to screen with a blood donation. That is not, really not an ethical thing to do and it’s not a desirable thing to do for the population. That is something you never want to do. There should never have been a time when that happened because the fact that we have a volunteer group of people donating and they’re screened out for diseases, it’s very important that you don’t use it for that purpose.

So blood types, yes you do find out what type you are. They should be giving you a card or an indication of what blood type you are. If you are an O positive or negative, you are a much more desirable donor. We need all blood types, but those blood types—O pos and O neg—can be used on many more people than other blood types for red cells. So every time you donate, your unit is separated into red cells and plasma. Red cells type O can be given to anybody. If you're in an accident, they don’t know your blood type. You come into the ER and you're bleeding, they’ll give you type O because they know that that is going to be compatible with you no matter what. O negative is compatible with everybody. So that’s why people with O neg blood are so important to the blood supply. They can be given to anybody. Pregnant women who come in in an accident. Anybody that needs blood, can get an O neg. O pos is a little bit fewer people can get those, but that is generally used in trauma as well.

It’s good to know your blood type so that you know how you can donate. For instance, I'm an AB, which means my plasma can be given to anybody. My platelets can be given to anybody, but my red cells can only be given to an AB patient. So my plasma and platelets are much more useful in a blood supply. It’s like an O neg but for plasma and platelets. So red cells, O neg. Plasma and platelets AB are the most desirable blood types.

Host: Well I'm a B positive. So I know that when they put out a call for that, I go running. Now, some people wonder if it’s safe to receive blood. So tell us when somebody does donate, what types of tests do you perform on donated blood before it can be used?

Cindy: They test for every virus that they can test for, essentially. And bacteria. Syphilis, hepatitis. All the different kinds of hepatitis. HIV, of course, Zika. They do a whole battery of tests to make sure that that blood is as safe as possible. The statistics are… It’s incredible safe. There’s very, very little chance of transmission or any kind of illness through the blood supply.

Host: Can someone donate to themselves?

Cindy: Yeah, actually. That is called autologous donation. You, prior to a surgery, an elective surgery, have the choice to donate a unit of blood to yourself. That practice is becoming less used because of the safety of the blood supply. They want to optimize the patient for surgery. Of course, taking out some blood means your blood levels will go down a little bit and you'll have to remake that before surgery. That stresses the body a little bit. But yes. It is possible to have an autologous donation where you would get your own blood if it were to be needed during surgery.

Host: How does a person feel after donating? One of my favorite parts, and I have to admit this, is the bagels and the cookies and the brownies and the things we get afterwards because it’s like a nice little free lunch or breakfast, but what does it feel like? Then tell us what happens to the blood after it’s donated? How long until it’s used?

Cindy: Well, right after donation, they have done all your blood levels. So you should be feeling pretty good. For instance, here usually they give away something really nice at the hospital. Either movie tickets. I know in November they give a pie for thanksgiving. So it’s always, and it’s a good feeling just to have donated and know you're helping your community. Now, as far as the blood is donated, by about seven days’ worth of testing and the results coming back from testing. Then it’s put out into the blood supply. That is different for different blood products. So for red cells, everything is tested. All the different types of blood products are tested for about seven days. Then for the red cells, it comes out to the hospital or wherever at the point of need. It can last in our refrigerators for 42 days for most types of red cells.

The platelets last only five days. So platelets don’t like the refrigerator very much. When you put them in the refrigerator, they don’t function like they should when they get transfused into somebody’s body. So you have to keep the platelets at room temperature. That’s why we need continuous donations of platelets because they don’t last as long as the red cells. We also need red cells, but platelets are what is caught in clots in your body. So if those are low then you tend to bleed. So they need ones that are functional when they transfuse them. Those can only last for five days at room temperature. Plasma, on the other hand, can last up to a year because it can be frozen. There’s no living cells in plasma. So they’re able to freeze that for a whole year and it can be used any time during that year.

Host: Well, thank you for clearing that up for people that are wondering. As we wrap up, Cindy, tell us what you would like us to know about the importance, the incredible importance, of blood donation and how people can go about donating blood at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital.

Cindy: Well, I don’t think I can overemphasize the importance of blood donation. There have been many lives saved here at the hospital—here at just our hospital, never mind all the other hospitals in the country—from blood donations. There have been accidents that have used, patients who have used up to 50/60 units of red cells to survive their trauma. So to protect the community, we have to have that blood supply up to a reasonable level where we can get that. All of our blood is supplied by the American Red Cross. So if you donate to the American Red Cross, that helps the supply of our community. We have donations here from the American Red Cross that comes onsite at the hospital to donate every eight weeks or so. We have an event coming up on June 19^th where you can donate here at the hospital. All you have to do is go to the American Red Cross website to sign up for the donation. I did want to mention that June 14^th is international blood donor day. So that would be a nice, timely donation in June, especially with the shortages that we’re experiencing now.

Host: It’s great information and so important. I encourage people to donate blood whenever you can. As Cindy said, every eight weeks look into donating plasma and platelets because it’s all needed all year round. Find out your blood type and go donate blood. It could save so many lives. That wraps up another episode of It’s Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Head on over to our website at henrymayo.com for more information and to get connected with one of our providers. If you found this podcast informative, please share on your social media and be sure to check out all the other fascinating podcasts in our library. I'm Melanie Cole.