MIDLAND, Texas — At Midland Memorial Hospital, blood, platelets, and plasma are liquid gold.
Blood supply products have been running low because a lot of regular donors have stopped donating since the pandemic began.
These days convalescent plasma is from those who have had COVID-19 or have the COVID-19 antibodies, which is especially valuable.
"It's been around 100 years and it's been given in other pandemics," William Klingensmith, Pathologist and Medical Laboratory Director at MMH. "Basically if you beat COVID, you share those antibodies that can help you recover and protect you."
Those antibodies are only good for about three months after someone beats the virus.
So the window to donate is small. Meanwhile, demand has never been higher.
"We were running low because of such a large spike in COVID cases and physicians running the plasma treatment," Klingensmith said.
In the past few weeks, MMH was not getting as much plasma as they needed in a timely matter.
"We typically run 200 patients in the hospital, and about 25-30% of our patients are COVID so the doctors that take care of those were stretched very thin."
People who have had the virus or the antibodies, and have been symptom-free for at least 28 days can donate through Vitalant.
As for folks who haven't had the virus, the donations are still needed.
"Mother can hemorrhage we need blood, car accidents, I mean we always need blood products and so it's always good to donate," Klingensmith said.
Donating blood takes around 10 minutes and can be done once a month.
Donating plasma takes around 25 minutes and can be done every week.
Just spending a little time donating, can make a big difference.
For information on how to schedule an appointment click here.
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