The Irish Blood Transfusion Service has said it still needs people to donate blood during the COVID-19 crisis.

The service said it needs to collect at least 80% of its normal supply while much of the country is shut down because of the outbreak.

It is asking donors to set up an appointment to come in to the donation clinic so that it can manage attendance and ensure maximum social distancing.

Blood donation

IBTS Chief Executive Andy Kelly said there will always be patients that blood, regardless of the outbreak.

“We still need people to come and donors have been responding really well,” he said.

“In the last week or so there has been a slight drop in attendance of about 13%, but that is to be expected and that is fine for us because it maintains our supply.

“But we wouldn’t want to see it to drop any lower than 20% certainly because we would struggle then with our needs.”

COVID-19

The IBTS said anyone feeling unwell or who has had contact with a COVID-19 patient should not attend to give blood.

He said clinics have precautions in place for donors that do come in.

“When they turn up, they will be met by somebody at the door,” he said.

“If they are well, they will go through the normal process when they go into the clinic arena.

“We have hand sanitisers in lots of places around the clinics and we then obviously have distance between people and between beds and so on and we will have a much more controlled number of people in our clinics.”

He said the patients that will rely on people donating blood include cancer patients, trauma cases, premature babies and their mothers and patients who are dependent on regular transfusions to survive.