LifeStream Blood Bank reports critically low levels of blood due to the holidays and flu season

January is National Blood Donor Month and LifeStream Blood Bank is reporting critically low levels of blood right now.

News Channel 3 met with the President of LifeStream Blood Bank, Rick Axelrod who tells us the low blood supply is due to the holiday and flu seasons.

He shares that during the busy holiday season people aren’t thinking about donating blood which creates a shortage.

“So then the New Year comes around, we’ve exhausted the supply from what we’ve collected before the holidays and now we’re in a shortage," Axelrod said. "On top of that we have the flu season that has people not being able to donate blood so those two things together has less than a one day supply to meet all the needs in the Coachella Valley,” he added.

The Coachella Valley collects 16,000 unites of blood per year but the hospitals use 20,000 unites so we are 4,000 unites short.

Everyone is encouraged to give blood. The only time you should not give blood is when you are sick but as soon as you feel better you’re good to give blood.

“We need our community to come out and help. Either patient surgeries will be cancelled, chemotherapy and getting blood is going to be delayed, babies won’t be able to be treated so we don’t want that to happen so we need our community to come out and help us,” he said.

Lifestream Blood Bank is located in Rancho Mirage at:

42390 Bob Hope drive, Ste. 1b, Rancho Mirage

They are also in La Quinta at:

79215 Corporate Centre Dr, La Quinta, CA 92253