Winter storm causes blood shortage concerns

(1/16/07 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- The cold weather is having an unexpected affect on Houston hospitals. Several hospitals are calling for help. In some cases, the blood supply is now critical.

The empty shelves in the blood bank made officials nervous at Methodist Hospital, because these shelves are empty before Houston's impending ice storm. That's why they hastily set up a blood drive in the hospital's main lobby.

"Right now the blood supply is critical," said Methodist Vice-President Cathy Easter. "You need blood to do surgery and all the other things throughout the hospital and now it's critical because of the weather throughout the country."

Methodist gets half its blood supply from outside of Houston and because of the icy travel conditions, it hasn't gotten those deliveries since last week.

If you have type O blood, that's the most critical area of need. They haven't cancelled surgeries yet, but they're only doing one surgery at a time on patients with O blood to make sure they have enough blood to complete the surgery.

Methodist now has only 10-15% of its usual supply of type O blood. The supply is higher with other types. So officials have been getting employees, families and the public to donate blood in an impromptu drive in the lobby.

Easter said, "We're really trying to treat this before it becomes a worse problem. By putting the call out to employees, families and the great Houston community, we anticipate we'll be able to meet the demand."

The blood supply is better at the Blood Center which supplies blood products for most Houston hospitals. They are experiencing only minor shortages today. But they tell us they're concerned about a prolonged ice storm which might prevent regular donors from coming in.