United Blood Services holds drive in New Town church
United Blood Services holds drive in New Town church
By MARVIN BAKER
EDITOR
United Blood Services was in New Town Thursday afternoon for a blood drive that 16 people signed up to donate blood.
According to Mat Weise of United Blood Services in Minot, his organization supplies more than 100 hospitals with blood and there is an urgent need to be going out into the communites seeking donors.
“We use it for surgery, trauma or red-cell therapy,” Weise said. “It’s interesting in ER. If they don’t know somebody’s blood type, red cells are given. So yes, we’ll use a church, a retirement home, a city hall, an ambulance hall or school for people to donate.”
Weise said the red-cell therapy is becoming more important all the time as it’s applications are continually growing. He said out of 20 people donating blood, UBS likes to 20 percent to donate red cells. It’s an option that helps save lives, according to Weise.
Unfortunately, Weise said people are not really coming forward to donate blood during the summer and he would have liked to see more than 16 in New Town, even though Marlys Aubol did a great job setting up appointments for the 16 donors who did come forward.
“We schedule for what we can even though we call this the 101 days of summer,” he said. “We have to keep the levels up because of the hospitals we assist.”
