Irish Blood Transfusion Service urges public to donate as blood supplies reach critical low
Blood donors have been asked to take a break from the sunshine and attend clinics, with 2,000 extra donations urgently needed as some blood type supplies are down to just three days.
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) appealed on Wednesday for people to come forward in large numbers over the next four weeks.
Clinics in Cork and Dublin are now offering donors mixed-reality experiences to make donation more fun.
Only 3% of eligible people donate, but demand is so high it is estimated that one in four people will need a transfusion during their lives.
Hospitals have been asked to use existing stocks of blood to help the IBTS share limited supply across health services.
Director of donor services and logistics Paul McKinney said the IBTS aim to always have seven days' worth of blood in storage.
'However, current stock levels including those for O negative and B negative are causing concern at just three days' supply, and O positive which relates to nearly half the total population is at just over 2.5 days,' he warned.
The IBTS issued a stock management alert to hospitals last week.
'If the IBTS must issue an 'amber alert letter' which is the next escalation level of the blood shortage plan, it would have an immediate implication for hospitals and for elective surgical procedures requiring blood support,' he said.
Blood donors trying out new mixed reality experiences at IBTS clinics. The pilot initiative will run between May and June in a number of IBTS donation centres in Dublin and Cork. Picture: Abbot
He explained that demand from hospitals has been high since the Easter and May bank holidays.
'The continued good weather has also impacted clinic attendances,' he said, adding: 'the start of the summer holiday travel period has also had an impact on donor availability'.
The service is now seeking to boost collections by 500 donations per week.
'We are asking regular donors to make an extra effort to attend their nearest clinic especially in Dublin and Cork where we have clinic availability every week,' he said.
He also called on holidaymakers to consider donating before heading away for the summer.
'New donors are especially welcome,' he said.
'We would particularly encourage new donors of African heritage to join the National blood donor panel to help us diversify the donor base and get better blood type matches for patients.'
Clinics in Cork and Dublin began offering mixed reality experiences this week in partnership with healthcare company Abbott.
Mr McKinney welcomed the novel approach.
'This innovative technology introduces a gaming-like experience which evidence and feedback suggests makes blood, platelet and plasma donation less intimidating and more fun for the donor,' he said.
'We also hope it will encourage many people, of all ages, who want to donate but have been nervous about doing so in the past."
The project runs throughout June.
Donors are given lightweight headsets with a translucent visor to wear while donating blood.
Playing Intergalactica sees donors build a team of robots to explore planets, solve puzzles, and defeat enemies. While playing Zen Garden, donors listen to soothing music while planting seeds.
More information at: www.giveblood.ie or phone 1800 731 137.
Read More
New breast cancer treatment that avoids chemotherapy saves woman almost €43k in lost income avoided
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sunday World
15 hours ago
- Sunday World
Fr Brian D'Arcy: Sunday was my 80th birthday - In my head, I'm still 30
LONG LIFE | However, my body tells me I'll not play for Fermanagh in Croke Park today - or any other day – but I'll never throw in the towel. Psalm 90 puts it in perspective, 'All our days pass away; we finish our years with a moan. Our days may amount to three score and ten (that is, 70) or 80 for those who are strong.'. That's God warning me, I am now in the departure lounge. Reality began for me when the face in the mirror was not mine but my father's—the dreaded warning signs of old age are as plain as the wrinkles on my brow. With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone. I refuse to throw in the towel. There is no need to be old until you have to be. Fr Brian D'Arcy. Photo: Mark Condren News in 90 Seconds - 6th June 2025 The poet/priest Ed Hays rightly points out: 'We begin ageing at birth, so aren't there some preventive measures we can take to ensure a pleasurable old age?' Old people were respected in the past because they were few and far between. Now we live longer, and the number of old people is rapidly increasing. The much-maligned taxpayer is squeezed between an ever-increasing elderly population and an ever-more-expensive teenage population. For a long time, I thought I was one of those sandwiched between old age and youth. In the past year, I've stopped thinking of myself as middle-aged. I am old. Realising it and accepting it are not the same thing, though. Because I live in a Religious Community, I've become used to living with old people. They taught me that I should treat the old people I meet with the respect and the esteem I'd wish to be given when I am old. In old age, dignity is taken away by constant, intrusive examinations by doctors and medical procedures. 'Bodily strength and agility are removed, then teeth, eyesight, and hearing. Dreadful memory loss can occur at any time during the ageing process. It's as if we gradually lose everything and are stripped to the bone,' Ed Hays reminds me. Hays offers this advice as part of a spirituality of growing old. Accept the stripping away of many things we found necessary for our independence, as making room for inner peace. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin says the loss of bodily and mental abilities in old age is caused by the creator carving out large cavities in us to fill them up with God. Read more Hays adds that there are no pills to help us overcome the most dreaded diseases of old age – 'prickling impatience, touchy irritability, moody grumpiness, pessimistic cynicism, criticism of youth, and sickly nostalgia for the good old days. Never indulge in any of them.' Don't be worried about the inability to recite lengthy prayers. When pain and suffering become our constant companions, the ability to pray deserts us. Forget reciting prayers and instead become a living prayer by unconditionally embracing your sufferings. It's not easy being old these days. They say old people don't contribute to society and drain much-needed resources. In African culture, old age was treasured, and villagers respected the elderly as the most knowledgeable and the wisest. Since they discovered Google, who needs wise old people? One day, I asked a priest, who was over 90, how he kept himself so fit and active. Quick as a flash, he shot back: 'I always go to bed the same day I get up.' I haven't done that in fifty years. I cannot deny now that the sand in the hourglass speedily drains out, and the golden years pass quickly. My days are filled with goodbyes. The late Paddy Cole often joked: 'Brian, if we don't die soon, there'll be nobody left to come to our funerals.' I don't laugh as loudly now. As I age, I treasure the gifts of health, family, friends, and memories with sublime gratitude. To sum up, on my 80th birthday, I can genuinely say that growing old is no fun, but it is still better than the alternative. Age is inevitable; growing old is a choice. Opportunities don't happen; you have to create them. It's never too late to be what you might have become.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Irish Times
Scientist with ‘debilitating' condition alleges discrimination by not being allowed work from home
A scientist living with 'debilitating' endometriosis has accused international medical devices firm Abbott of discriminating against her by refusing to let her work from home to ease a daily commute of nearly four hours. The worker, who has over a decade of industry experience and advanced postgraduate qualifications, told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on Tuesday she was given ten minutes to pick up her things and get off an Abbott site last autumn after being told she failed her probation. She said she was reduced to 'crying all the way back' in a colleague's arms during the drive home. Abbott Ireland Ltd is denying complaints of disability discrimination and discriminatory dismissal under the Employment Equality Act 1998 by the worker, Ms X, who has been afforded anonymity by the WRC. READ MORE Ms X was hired by Abbott in spring 2024 and spent just short of six months working in an office at an Abbott site in a county town analysing test data, but was deemed to have failed her probation and was let go that autumn, the tribunal heard. The company's representative, Fiona Egan of the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation (Ibec), submitted that Ms X failed her probation for 'conduct and performance' following a number of instances of lateness and uncertified absences from work. It had 'nothing to do with her condition', she said. Shaun Boylan BL, appearing for Ms X instructed by Sean Ormonde & Co Solicitors, said the firm's policy of refusing to allow probationary employees to work from home was 'implicitly discriminatory' against his client, as it put accommodations for her disability 'on hold for six months'. Ms X said she had been diagnosed with stage two endometriosis in 2022, a condition affecting the female reproductive organs. She said it causes her 'debilitating pain', accompanied by 'nausea, fainting and dizziness' which was at its worst during the 7-8 days of her period and required prescription-only codeine and opiate painkillers to manage. The daily drive from Ms X's home to the Abbott site was 'coming up on a four-hour commute to work every day', adjudication officer Brian Dolan remarked during the hearing on Tuesday. Ms X said she thought at first she should 'just endure' the commute. Her evidence was that she was 'promised in the interview that it would be a hybrid role' and that she had turned down roles elsewhere with a five-day-a-week on-site commitment because of that. Ms X said her immediate team consisted of six or seven colleagues, but 'nobody' was in office five days a week, and 'most' were working from home. On a date six weeks after she started, a 'very sudden' departmentwide meeting was called, at which she said a senior manager declared 'there would be no more work from home possible' at the site, barring the 'possibility' of one day a week. Ms X said she was in 'excruciating pain' that day and found the message 'difficult to take'. She told the commission she went straight to her team leader 'in visible distress, with tears in my eyes' and proceeded to tell him she had endometriosis. She said her team leader was 'empathetic' and 'supportive' at that stage and gave her an assurance that a 'one week in, one week out' work from home arrangement would be possible – but only once her probation was finished. Making it in for an on-site team meeting at 9.30am meant setting out from home at 6.30am or 6.45am, Ms X said. Over seven weeks before a probationary caution letter being issued in her final weeks on the job, Ms X was late eight times and absent without a medical cert on three occasions, leading to an occupational health referral. She said a senior manager later told her: 'The company cannot offer more than one day work from home past your probation,' and urged her to find somewhere to live closer to the site. The probation review continued into the following month, and concluded when her team leader called her into a conference room and read out a letter stating that her employment was being terminated, she said. The only reason stated was: 'Your standard of performance has not met company expectations.' 'I asked why. [My team leader] said: 'Everything is in the letter,'' Ms X said. After saying she could not continue with the meeting a company HR officer told her an outstanding pay matter could be handled by email and gave her 'ten minutes to leave, to grab [my] stuff and leave the premises'. 'Everyone was crying in the car,' she said. 'I hugged my colleague, in the car, and kept crying all the way back to Dublin,' she added. The adjudicator, Mr Dolan, told Ms X he had the power to order her reinstatement as a remedy under the equality legislation if she was successful in the case. Ms X replied: 'I'd probably never come back to Abbott.' The case has been adjourned to a later date, when three company witnesses, including Ms X's team leader and the senior manager are due to give evidence.
Dublin Live
3 days ago
- Dublin Live
Undercover RTE documentary highlights horrific conditions in Irish nursing homes
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info A shocking RTÉ documentary that goes undercover in two nursing homes shows residents crying out for help, left in soiled clothes and being incorrectly handled. Over the past eight weeks, the public broadcaster has been investigating care at two nursing homes run by Emeis Ireland, formerly Orpea. The largest private nursing home provider in the country, it has 27 homes across the country with capacity for 2,400 residents. Following concerns raised by several whistleblowers, RTÉ had two undercover researchers and healthcare workers apply for and secure jobs at separate Emeis nursing homes. The researchers got extensive footage from The Residence Portlaoise, Co Laois, and Beneavin Manor in Glasnevin, Dublin. In Portlaoise, a woman was left stranded on a toilet by a new carer who had gone on her break. Harrowing footage shows the woman saying "Don't leave me now, oh my God," as she has a broken call bell. A nurse then comes to her help, as the terrified resident tells her she was "ringing and ringing and ringing". Later, speaking about the carer, she says: "She never came back. I'm here on me own. It was terrible. It is a fright when the other yoke won't work." The nurse then told her "don't worry" but proceeded to clean the woman's hands with her own skirt. In another incident, a man was left waiting for 25 minutes to use the bathroom, as he said he was "in terrible pain" and "very full". Consultant Geriatrician Prof Rónán Collins, who took part in the documentary, said: "I don't want to be melodramatic and say that it amounts to institutional abuse of people but clearly if people are suffering because they want to go to the toilet and they're faced with the choice of being incontinent in the chair not being taken to the toilet due to staffing levels, that is very, very poor care of people." Prof David Robinson added: "What we're looking at I suppose is largely institutional abuse and this is neglect at, we're seeing a lot of it, in a setting which is supposed to be caring." Footage in Portlaoise showed a serious staffing issue, as the undercover healthcare worker was just one of three staff looking after 30 residents on Easter Saturday. (Image: RTE Investigates) Much of the inadequate care appears to be down to staffing issues, however, the documentary also exposes a lack of proper equipment. At a staff meeting in Portlaoise, the home ran out of incontinence pads, with a nurse saying that the next supply wouldn't arrive for 10 days. A senior nurse then tells staff that management might restrict their access to pads. She said: "'You were told this at the meeting, if ye run out of pads this month, you're going have to use what's there. You'll have to go and use sticky pads and use underwear and sticky pads for the next 10 days'." A nurse then said that some residents were found "double padded" and "that is a form of abuse". Commenting on this, Prof Robinson said: "Rationing incontinence wear when you're trying to make sure that people are clean and dry and also promote toileting. It's almost like a restriction." The Emeis policy on correct manual handling techniques states its nursing homes should operate a "minimal manual handling approach". However, during her time at The Residence in Portlaoise, the undercover assistant frequently saw staff flout basic manual handling skills. A shocking scene shows a frail older woman being lifted under her arms by one male carer, despite her care plan outlining she needs two workers and a full body hoist. The resident distressingly shouts "no" as the staff member tells her "no you're fine, you're fine". At Beneavin Manor in Glasnevin, footage also showed staff improperly handling residents and leaving them to soil themselves. While going down a corridor, a man using a walking frame was shown being guided by two staff in a very quick manner. One assistant was hoisting him by the back of his waist, and he became visibly uncomfortable and upset. Despite protesting, they forced him into his room and very abruptly pulled his trousers down and yanked his pad off before being pushed into a chair. The elderly man could be heard saying: "Stop that! Stop that, get out of my room." Prof Collins said: "That's unacceptable. You can clearly see that he's being roughly handled, inappropriately handled, that he's not understanding what's going on and being slightly frightened by as well as being grabbed by the back of his pants and pushed forward, pushed back into the chair. That's very inappropriate handling." At the nursing home, the undercover reporter was also shown by a more senior assistant how to transfer a patient to bed "quickly". (Image: RTE) Despite protocol being to use a hoist, she showed her how to lift the patient under her arms. She then informed her: "We aren't allowed to do this, it's speedy Gonzales". At nighttime in Beanevin, footage showed a resident being refused the toilet, and told to go on his incontinence pad. A nurse then gets agitated and tells him not to go on his sheets as they don't have any more. The man was then heard calling for help multiple times but no one responded. On another occasion, the same elderly man was found by the undercover reporter lying on a soaking wet bare mattress without any bedsheets. (Image: RTE) Speaking at the end of the documentary, Professor Robinson said the footage shows "systemic and institutional lack of consideration for the older person. "This is going to shorten people's lives and their lives will be more miserable." RTÉ Investigates said findings have been reported by RTÉ researchers to HIQA, and the local nursing home management where applicable. It also said the findings of the investigation have been shared with the private nursing home group and RTÉ has offered them due right of reply. In a statement, Emeis Ireland said: "It is not, nor will it ever be our policy to understaff any of our nursing homes. (Image: RTE) "Staff should only be released for in service training when sufficient staff remains in place to meet resident needs. "The allocation and utilisation of staff resources across both nursing homes is also the subject of this review. "It is not acceptable for residents to wait for care or to be dismissed when requesting assistance. We take these matters very seriously and we do not tolerate such practices... "We acknowledge and sincerely apologise to residents and their families for the distress caused by the failings identified. This is not the standard we expect and not the standards that residents or their families deserve."
