Interview: Blood donations needed after storm

PROVIDENCE, RI. (WPRI) -- This weekend’s blizzard has put a strain on blood supplies. The Rhode Island Blood Center has encouraged donors, particularly platelet donors, to make a donation early this week.

Frank Prosnitz from The Rhode Island Blood Center said that the numbers went from 5,075 units to approximately 600 units due to the storm.

“We saw a lot of empty chairs, drives weren’t doing as well as our goals were,” Prosnitz said.

The center has high hopes of getting the unit number back up because of an excellent donor group that comes out at times like these.

Prosnitz emphasized the importance of platelet supplies during crisis situations.

“Platelets have a shelf life of five days, so the platelets we’re using right now are ones we collected last week prior to the storm,” he said.

Platelets are used by leukemia, cancer and chemo therapy patients.

Prosnitz discussed how the center needs approximately 280 pints of blood per day for people who are hospitalized in our community.

“All blood takes about two days of testing, so anything collected today is not available for a couple of days. So it’s really important to get those platelets in,” he said.

The Rhode Island Blood Center phone number is 1-800-283-8385. There are blood centers located in Providence, Middletown, Warwick, and Woonsocket that are open all day. Visit RIBC.org for hours and locations of blood drives.