New Blood Center Opens Tomorrow
January 27th, 2014; Posted by: WeBleed staff
For years locals have had to make the drive to Everett, WA to donate platelets – a drive down I-5 that, from Bellingham, is just a little over an hour (more or less depending on where you live). Tomorrow, residents will be able to get their first glimpse inside the new, bigger, and improved blood and platelet donation center that Puget Sound Blood Center is opening.
“Our old center just wasn’t big enough. We literally could not fit another bed (or) piece of machinery in there,” said Dave Leitch, director of donor and volunteer resources told the Bellingham Herald.
Like the old center, the new Bellingham center will have four stations for people donating blood. It also has room to accommodate two new apheresis stations for people donating platelets. The $955,000 expansion includes the cost for the new equipment to collect platelets – the part of blood that helps stop bleeding – from donors.
Leitch said the apheresis machines, that are used to collect double red cell donations were put in at the request of area donors. Double red cell donations allow donors to give enough red blood cells for two transfusions in one visit.
Visit www.psbc.org/Bellingham for more information (address, hours of operation, etc.), including info on how to donate blood, platelets, or funds to the center.
Photo credit: Philip A Dwyer/Bellingham Herald
