The COVID situation has put a strain on the amount of blood being donated.
Jennifer Dareichuk, Associate Director of Donor Relations in Saskatchewan and Manitoba for the Canadian Blood Services says over the past few months they’ve had to make a number of adjustments to their operations.
“We’ve definitely seen our capacity or the number of donations that we can collect at each one of our donor centres has shrunk through some of the things we’ve had to implement with the pandemic. With physical distancing, it means that we can’t process quite as many donors as we normally would before the pandemic, so that has meant in some cases we’ve had more donors that have wanted to come out than what we’ve been able to accommodate on a particular date.”
If residents in the Parkland would like to donate blood, Dareichuk says the options are Brandon or Winnipeg. The Canadian Blood Services have continued to run mobile events in Brandon at a smaller capacity. She says moving forward, demand has been returning to normal.
“Really, we’re looking to expand the hours and the bed sizes at our mobile events and that is happening in Brandon. So, in the month of July, we’ve added some hours to the donor centres that we’re having in our schedule there and we’re looking at opportunities to continue that moving forward in the future.”
Dareichuk stresses that when booking an appointment, even if there’s an appointment tomorrow, the one a month from now is still needed.
If anyone is interested in going to a donor centre, she says the best thing to do is to go to www.blood.ca.
“So, we have our full schedule there for any location in Manitoba and all across the country. So, they can go, check out the location, the hours, and book their appointment in an upcoming event either a couple weeks away or a few months away. We welcome them to come whenever it works for them and thank them for that intention.”
Dareichuk says they don’t come to the Dauphin area with their mobile events, the closest one is Brandon. She adds that they don’t add too many communities to their list and moving forward they’ll be going to the communities they already travel to.
If you can’t make it to a mobile event out of the community, there are other ways to help the Canadian Blood Services. Dareichuk suggests joining the stem cell registry, making a financial donation, or express your intent to be an organ or tissue donor.
