Because most students left the area for the summer, donations have dropped to dangerously low levels, and the hospitals are having trouble replenishing their reserves, said Laura Shook-Marino, donor recruiter of UNC Hospitals' Platelet and Plasma Program.
Shook-Marino said the hospitals need 12 pints of platelets a day. While the program is usually able to supply that amount, lately only four or five donors are providing a pint, or unit, of platelets daily.
When the program has enough donations, it tries to match a donor with a patient so the patient is exposed to only one person's blood.
But when the program faces shortages, the hospitals are no longer able to abide by this ideal procedure. "What happens when we get down to four units of platelets is that we start splitting platelets among patients," Shook-Marino said.
Platelets, which Shook-Marino likened to an internal bandage, promote clotting, while plasma helps carry the solid cells and platelets throughout the body.
To get the number of donations back up to the needed levels, Shook-Marino said the program is focusing on students, who usually constitute 30 percent of its donors. The rest come from community members and hospital employees.
"(Students) have a real sense of community, and a lot of them have donated whole blood in high school," she said.
And Shook-Marino said many students would rather donate for free than go to a center like Sera-Tec Biologicals Limited Partnership, which pays donors for their plasma. "For a blood product to be transfused to a patient, it has to be a volunteer donor, and I think students realize this."
The process of platelet and plasma donation differs from whole blood donation because it is a "give-and-take process."
