Blood Drives Continue to B-Positive this Year

After a year wrought with a variety of cancellations across many events, the Oklahoma Blood Institute has worked to continue saving lives even during the pandemic.

While some businesses and schools chose to cancel some blood drives over the year, both Geary and Watonga worked with OBI to put on these events.

“In 2020, during a pandemic, when so many schools and businesses were canceling blood drives due to going virtual, Watonga [and Geary] kept supporting Oklahoma Blood Institute and helped to ensure that Oklahoma patients would have the blood they needed,” Executive Director for the Oklahoma Blood Institute-Enid Center Jessy Dershem said.

The blood drives, however, have not been without their fair share of changes due to the pandemic. Social distancing, mask-wearing, extra sanitization, and location changes have been just some of the things done to keep these events going.

“OBI had to adjust to socially distancing donors on beds, encouraging appointments more than ever, additional cleaning passes between donors, purchasing hundreds of thousands of disposable masks, additional wear and tear on our mobile blood drive stations so we could keep blood drives outside of businesses, and relying on community members to find us to donate, rather than always being set up at their work, church or school,” Dershem said.

Despite all these changes, Dershem said they have strived to continue during both COVID and recent ice storms.

“Through it all we survived. We relearned how to operate in a time of uncertainty, and it wasn’t until the recent ice storm when we had to make the hard ask and put out a blood emergency,” she said. “Weather forced even our most loyal donors to stay home and sent us under a oneday blood supply.”

Dershem said she is looking ahead to the remainder of the year and sees some hope to come for future planned events.

“Thankfully, we are into the spring weather, many schools are back to in-person learning, and donors feel safer to get out and stop by a blood drive. We are heading into this summer with a stable blood supply and asking our donors to continue to stick with us.”

Overall, this year both Geary and Watong’s blood drives were a success with a total of 59 donors from both events resulting in 177 potential lives saved from the blood donated.

“Our drives went great even with all of the COVID and FDA regulations,” OBI Account Consultant Chelsea Thomas said. “We're very grateful for all of the community members that came out to Watonga and Geary.”

Despite a pandemic, some donors such as Geary resident Monica Martinez decided to make this year the first time they give blood.

Martinez said she came out to give blood to find out what her blood type was and wasn’t really afraid of COVID being a factor during her time giving blood.

Making sure their donors feel safe during these events is an important factor for OBI organizers.

“We want to ensure our donors’ safety and continue providing the safest and adequate blood supply to all our patients, no matter what global pandemics head our way,” Dershem said.

Dershem also made mention that a recent increase of donors in Watonga has been seen in the previous year.

What was once an average of 40 donors per event has now risen to 50. Dershem credits the help of the Watonga Fire Department for the increase.

“At the [Watonga Fire Department] blood drive, we had almost 70 people donate,” Dershem said. “I think that the fire department kind of helped bring in some new donors. Since then, we've just retained them.”

Blood, however, is not the only thing needed this year. Convalescent plasma was looked for at these events as it has been one of the main treatments for people with COVID.

“In the earlier days of COVID, when we started collecting this product that we'd never even heard of before, we were just trying to get it out there that there was this great need for convalescent plasma,” Dershem said.

According to Dershem, convalescent plasma could be found in people who have had COVID. The test is administered to all individuals donating blood. Anyone found to have convalescent plasma is then contacted and told they can donate.

Some individuals such as Watonga resident Bobby Landreth come to give blood for their first time to see if they have had COVID in the past.

“[My wife and I] heard they were doing the COVID antibody tests with the blood samples,” Landreth said. “We think we’ve had COVID and we wanted to get the antibody test.”

Upcoming Blood Drives

• April 22 @ Watonga Chamber of Commerce

• May 18, July 20, Sept 21, Nov 23 @ First Baptist Church in Watonga