PEORIA, Ill. – Blood supplies, no matter where you donate to, are low due in part to COVID-19 and in part due to the winter months.
But it’s the sort of thing “ImpactLife” — formerly the Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center — has been trying to make not as bad.
“The ‘Blood Emergency Readiness Corps’is a group of independent blood centers like ours,” said Kirby Winn, spokesperson, ImpactLife. “Right now, we have 30 members from all across the country. It’s growing all the time. We think we’ll add to that.”
The first-of-its-kind partnership, Winn says, will essentially support local blood supplies when there is a mass casualty-type situation somewhere else.
“What happens through the Blood Emergency Readiness Corps is they backfill, and backfill immediately,” Winn said. “We know that when we’re on call that this is our week to set aside units of blood that we can ship anywhere in the country where they might be needed.”
Otherwise, Winn says the blood center tries to get 3,000-plus donations per week, but that is generally lower during the winter months, made even worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.
ImpactLife provides blood to local hospitals.
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