Red Cross USA changes guidelines – increases the hurdle for directed donations

As of July 2024, we learn that the US RED CROSS has changed the guidelines for directed donations as follows:

This has serious consequences, as you can read in this message from our US team leader Demi:

“SITUATION REPORT – THE RED CROSS

I spoke with a member on the phone yesterday who put in a donor request back in May. She is a patient with the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, which up until now we have considered a “friendly” facility.

I referred her donors to her, and I believe she was able to arrange her first round of directed blood donations successfully. Her doctor signed and sent to the Red Cross their standard one-page form which contained her name and the names of all her donors.

However, she still needed a second round of transfusions. Everything was falling into place for her to receive her second round of directed blood donations, but then…

LAST WEEK THE RED CROSS CHANGED THEIR DIRECTED BLOOD DONATION POLICY!

According to the member I spoke with last night, the Red Cross directed blood donation form has now expanded to TWO PAGES. The second page contains a litany of “risks” to the donor when giving directed donor blood.

Red Cross “policy” now requires the ordering physician to PERSONALLY CALL EVERY DONOR ON THE LIST and READ TO THEM THE LIST OF “RISKS” and ensure that they understand them.

Because of this new policy, even though page one of the blood collection order had already been sent in, the Red Cross refused to fill her blood collection order unless and until her doctor personally calls every single one of her donors and then verifies that he has done so.

At that point, her doctor said “I’m not doing that.” So her directed blood donation is on permanent “hold” with her hemoglobin critically low. She is too weak to travel, and the nearest “friendly” facility is two hours’ away. Moreover, she doesn’t have a doctor with any of the “nearby” (2+ hours’ drive) facilities even if she tried to get there. She was quite distraught last night, and unfortunately I didn’t have any real options to offer.

Obviously, this is an attempt to SHUT DOWN DIRECTED DONATIONS. The unreasonable amount of a physician’s time required to personally call every donor on a patient’s directed donor list and read through a list of “risks” means that more and more doctors going forward will refuse to write a blood collection order for their patients.

Be aware that any hospital which uses the Red Cross for directed blood donations might soon disappear as an option.

HEADS UP!”

Well, Demi is the one who helps our members make the difficult less difficult for them, and usually very successfully. This means that with this new hurdle we will always have to look for an alternative to the Red Cross, and fortunately there are private labs on the market. We will stay tuned…

We hope that with Biden out of office, the headwinds will lessen.