New blood center opens

Thursday, Jan. 17, 2002 | 9:45 a.m.

The new United Blood Services center in Henderson opened Wednesday with crooner Steve Lippia singing "I've Got You Under My Skin" for "all the phlebotomists in the house."

The new blood center's first donors watched in amusement.

"I wasn't expecting all this excitement," said Tris Bowman, a longtime blood donor who was the first client at the new office in the Eastern Marketplace shopping center on Eastern Avenue. "I'm all for it if it gets more people in to donate."

United Blood Services now has five community centers in Southern Nevada serving 19 area hospitals. The newest center, just east of St. Rose Siena Hospital, features the latest in automated transfusion equipment.

The new machines allow phlebotomists to collect two units of red blood cells from each donor in a single visit -- twice as much as conventional transfusion methods. The machines are also significantly faster.

More efficient automated equipment means more blood collected, Ron Hein, executive director of United Blood Services, said.

"This is the wave of the future, it's proven to be one of the keys to a shrinking blood supply," Hein said.

Southern Nevada residents answered the call for blood donations following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, waiting in line up to eight hours for a chance to give. Now the patriotic fervor appears to have waned.

"We call and ask people to come in and donate, and they hang up on us," said Sheryl Simmons, a donor recruitment representative for the blood centers.

Of the 50,000 potential donors contacted each month, just 5,000 people schedule appointments, and only 65 percent of those people show up.

All of the blood collected in the days and weeks following Sept. 11 has been used, said Judy Siglar, associate executive director of United Blood Services. Some centers couldn't handle the immediate crowds and asked people to schedule a donation at a later time, she said. More than 85 percent of the donors kept the appointments.

"We saw an amazing outpouring of community spirit," Siglar said. "We would like to build some of that momentum back up."