Blood shortage peaks during winter

Many cities across the country experience the same phenomenon in the winter: fewer blood donors, but a higher demand for blood from hospitals. Many local blood centers have taken measures in various ways, giving out brochures in downtown areas of cities and arranging blood drives in residential areas.

Once again, it's almost Spring Festival, and a time for celebration, but the lower supply of blood coincides with the soaring demand in hospitals… In Zhejiang province, one hospital is in urgent need of type A,B, and O blood to start performing elective surgeries; in the Liaoning, Hebei, and Sichuan provinces, more blood donors are needed. After a few days of sending out brochures in a busy area of Chengdu, many have heard the call.

The West China Medical School is one of the largest hospitals in the country, and is located in Sichuan University in the Sichuan province. The hospital uses 46,000 units of blood per year, which is one of the highest amounts a hospital uses in China. The demand for blood at the hospital accounts for a quarter of the city's blood use.

"In the past two weeks, we've had to stop elective surgeries because of type O blood shortages. But we have enough blood for patients under treatment in the department of internal medicine and the emergency room," said Qin Li, chief physician of West China Medical School of Sichuan University.

According to data from the Chengdu Blood Center, in 2014, Chengdu alone has 180,000 donors , a 5 percent increase over 2013. The blood center provides 596-thousand units of clinical blood products to hospitals in the province every year. According to the data, in Chengdu, students account for 43 percent of donors, and most of them are less than 25 years old. Dr. Liu Jin says they have been working on a new method to save more blood.

"The West-China Liu's Scoring system. One important thing is to have enough blood to satisfy demand, but more importantly, it could reduce the possible harm from blood transfusions for patients," said Liu.

West-China Liu's Score significantly reduces Red Blood Cell requirement by more than 50%,hospital costs by 8%, post-operative severe complications by 2.4%, and infection rate by 1.9%. Hospitals across the country could potentially save up to 40 billion yuan in the costs of treatment for patients. Dr. Liu says it will take another 2-5 years to promote the methods to the hospitals nationwide.