ODESSA, Texas — Blood donations may sometimes seem like not much of a big deal, but they save more lives than you might think.
There is a national blood shortage going on, and it is affecting the Permian Basin as well.
The shortage even gets worse around the holiday season.
“Mostly, it's because of the fact that we have donors that are regulars, and they come in as soon as they can, as often as they can, and with them going out of town for the holidays to be with their family, we lose a lot of our regulars," said Sarah Montes, a phlebotomist for Vitalant. "As well as the fact that sometimes things can happen in an accident, and then they don't end up coming back to us.”
Vitalant sometimes has to rely on our neighbors to be able to supply the basin with blood.
“With hospital services, because we have our blood out there, when we walked in it used to be almost all the way stocked to one freezer, but now we’re so short, we have to call Lubbock or El Paso, and they’ll end up sending us some so we can give them to the Permian Basin," said Montes. "It is very short right now.”
Donating blood multiple times a year helps out a lot. Even if you can't donate blood, then get the word out to someone who can. There is always a need for it.