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The Irish Blood Transfusion Service (ITBS) has issued an urgent appeal for donors to to give blood in the wake of the severe weather last week.
Storm Emma forced the cancellations of blood donation clinics nationwide.
The ITBS said it is now hoping to collect 7,000 donations before St Patrick’s weekend.
The IBTS operations d irector Paul McKinney said the national blood supply has been severely depleted over the last week.
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“We have been unable to hold clinics, but we have continued to supply hospitals,” he said.
“As of this morning, we have just three days supply on average across all groups and just two days in O negative. We will be unable to guarantee supply to hospitals unless there is a significant increase in donations over the coming weeks to make up the shortfall,” he said.
Mr McKinney said with St Patrick’s Day bank holiday weekend fast approaching and Easter on the horizon, they have limited time to get the blood supply stabilised.
“We are asking blood donors to make a special effort to give blood over the coming weeks when there is a clinic in their area which will help to restore blood supplies,” he said.
The IBTS said it will be running four additional clinics on Sunday - in Waterford city, Drogheda, Celbridge and Doon - alongside its normal services.
Full details of clinics available on the GiveBlood website.
[ giveblood.ie/ ]