Vital blood supplies to the State's hospitals could be severely affected if a picket by nurses at the headquarters of the Blood Transfusion Service Board deters donors.
Twenty nurses at the BTSB are joining their hospital colleagues around the State in taking strike action today and will be picketing outside Pelican House on Dublin's Mespil Road.
A spokesperson for the BTSB said it was very worried about the possible impact of strike action on blood stocks.
If the regular flow of donors to Pelican House are deterred by nurses on the picket line, the consequences, especially of prolonged industrial action, could be extremely serious, according to Ms Deirdre Healy, the BTSB's communications manager.
She confirmed that the dispute would have an immediate impact on the platelet apheresis clinic at Pelican House, which will close for the duration of the strike. At this clinic, which is staffed by nurses, donors attend for one hour every six weeks to give blood platelets only, which are small blood cells essential to enable the blood to clot properly.
They are mainly given to patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer or leukaemia, because chemotherapy damages the patient's bone marrow cells, where the platelets are made.
Ms Healy explained that platelets can be stored for only five days and the impact of a protracted strike could therefore be critical. It is possible to extract platelets from regular blood donations but this takes considerable time, she said.
All other donors are urged by the BTSB to continue giving blood throughout the strike. The blood donor clinic at Pelican House, which sees an average of 550 donors every week, will remain open from 9.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. from Tuesday to Thursday, as normal.
"Blood donations are taken by trained donor attendants, not nurses, under the supervision of medical staff at all our clinics. Our clinics will therefore operate as normal," Ms Healy said.
She added that members of the Nursing Alliance at the BTSB had also asked the public to note that their dispute was not with the Blood Transfusion Service Board and that they too were anxious that people would continue to donate.
"We are pleased that the Nursing Alliance have supported our ongoing request for existing and new donors to donate blood," she said.