To alleviate the city's blood shortage, the Beijing Red Cross Blood Center is mobilizing State-owned company workers, government employees and college students to donate blood, the municipal government announced Wednesday.
"We're short of all types of blood," said the blood center's spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The capital's blood reserves should be 12,000 bags of blood, at 200 milliliters per bag, while the center only has 6,000 bags in storage now. Due to the severe shortage, some hospitals have had to delay surgeries.
"Many patients travel to the capital for medical treatment, which mainly causes a 10 percent annual escalation in demand," the spokesman said. "Plus the recent cold weather has kept people off the streets, so the shortage has suddenly become severe." Ninety percent of the blood supply comes from more than 20 mobile blood donation vehicles, according to the spokesman. In the past 10 days, donor numbers dropped by 30 to 40 percent over the same period as last year.
Safety concerns also contribute to blood shortages.
"I'm worried about the safety of the needles and the general sanitation," Zhan Nana, a 24-year-old college student said of her reluctance to donate.
But Wang Houfang, a doctor at United Family Healthcare, said that all the donation procedures in the city are safe, and "actually, blood donation can boost a donor's metabolism."
To resolve the need for blood, the city's blood center has prolonged their donation vehicles' working hours by one hour, from 9 am to 6 pm, and is providing fruit and juice to donors. Some big donation buses will work until 8 pm.
The center's vehicles will also visit the city's colleges to encourage students to donate next month, and has plans to increase its number of vehicles.