Local hospitals are hopeful the recent affiliation between the San Diego Blood Bank and American Red Cross Blood Services will help reduce a critical shortage of blood.
On Sept. 14, the blood bank and the American Red Cross, signed a cooperative agreement to pool their resources. The deal means both organizations remain independent but will coordinate blood drives.
For the blood bank, however, the cooperation is intended to ease $2 million in debt, according to Dr. Tony Melaragno, the blood bank’s medical director.
Local hospital providers, who all say they need more units of blood for elective and emergency surgeries, applauded the new partnership.
“I believe the people in charge have the best interest of the community in mind,” said Dr. Howard Robin, a pathologist and medical director of Sharp Memorial Hospital’s blood supply.
“We’re supportive of anything that would help to pool resources with the goal of lowering costs and increasing the availability of units,” said a Scripps spokeswoman.
“This is absolutely a good thing,” said Ann Walker, medical technologist at Children’s Hospital.
Children’s Hospital spends between $80,000 and $100,000 a month to buy 500 units of blood from its major contractor, the Red Cross, Walker said. The Red Cross has more access to blood and thus, can offer hospitals a better deal than the San Diego Blood Bank, she added.
But the hospital also turns to the blood bank when blood supply, such as platelets and plasma, is running low, she said.
Whether the partnership will be able to boost the local blood supply in the near future remains to be seen.
Melaragno said only between 4 and 5 percent of eligible donors give blood in San Diego. That compares to 10 percent of the population in other regions of the country.
At least 6 percent of eligible donors would have to come forward to reach an adequate supply in San Diego, he added. Spending the extra money to import blood has financially drained the blood bank. Melaragno said in 1999 alone the blood bank spent $1.4 million to import blood.
The Red Cross also imports blood , between 35,000 units of blood every year from Western regions of the United States , for the same reasons, said Rick LeGrand, area vice president for the American Red Cross in the Western United States.
The Red Cross could save $15 per unit of blood if more blood was donated here, he said.
The American Red Cross biomedical services group tallied $1.6 billion in gross revenues in fiscal 2000, which ended June 30, LeGrand said.
By contrast, the San Diego Blood Bank lost $250,000 alone within the last six months.
In the last two months, it also lost two top employees: Lynn Stedd, who had been the blood bank’s director of community relations for two decades, and Linda Ellis, who was the director of the blood bank’s foundation for some five years.
Melaragno and the blood bank’s spokeswoman, Ramona Walker, also a longtime employee, both said their exits was coincidental.
Ellis said during a recent phone interview her departure had nothing to do with the new agreement.
LeGrand, however, said, “Some employees (at the blood bank) may not think this is a good idea.” He rejected the idea any animosity exists between the two agencies.
The Red Cross was always one step ahead, said Melaragno. Half the nation’s blood banks are affiliated with the Red Cross, giving the much-larger organization more leverage, he said.
Representatives from Children’s Hospital, Kaiser Permanente and Scripps remained neutral when asked which blood bank they preferred.
Sharp’s Robin, however, said the health system has a well-established relationship with the 50-year-old San Diego Blood Bank.
“We are loyal to the San Diego Blood Bank, because they have their stable of donors,” Robin said. “The American Red Cross in San Diego does not have the same donor base.”
The large debt forced the blood bank to search for a lifeline of its own, Melaragno said.
Although both entities insisted the agreement isn’t a prelude to a merger, LeGrand did not rule out the possibility.
“We will look at this when we become more familiar with the organization,” he said.
If that happens, the Red Cross would be the sole local provider. That in turn may not be so good for local hospitals, according to critics.
Said Gary Stephany, president and CEO of the Healthcare Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties, “I have mixed emotions. If you have two entities that can work together, I think that’s great, but this would create a small monopoly.”
And it could potentially lead to an even higher price per unit of blood, Stephany and Robin agreed.
Hospital providers hoping to get relief on pricing as a result of the cooperation will be disappointed.
LeGrand expects the cooperation won’t lead to reduced prices, but instead should help curb increases.
Both LeGrand and Melaragno hope the cooperation will make San Diego self-sufficient.
