Shortages encountered often; Crises are routine at blood bank

              Type O-Negative blood is rare, though not the rarest. This week there probably was not a pint in the entire city available for a transfusion.
Certainly there was none in the cylindrical, refrigerated vaults at Charity Hospital, and the situation disturbed Dr. John Adriani.
"" He is head of the Charity Hospital anasthesia depart­ment, a teacher at Tulane University Medical School and head of the hospital's blood bank.
AFTER 20 YEARS (Dr. Ad­riani founded the blood bank that long ago) he has learned to accept as routine a crisis in the supply of blood, rare and otherwise, so fundamental to the success of any major subject.
Almost every week there is a shortage or complete lack of one of the four basic types of blood.
Dr. Adriani is responsible for the collection and prepara­tion of approximately 25,000 pints of the fluid each year for use in the hospital.
If the hospital had to buy it, the price would be about three-quarters of a million dollars annually.
AT CHARITY the procedure is to require each patient to provide the volunteers who will replace the blood used. In practice, this sometimes doesn't work out.
Although fewer patients are treated these days at Charity because restrictions on admit­tance have been tightened, more blood is used, about 22,-000 bottles, than ever before. Dr. Adriani said that al­though about 25,000 pints of blood are collected each year, 3000 must be discarded for one reason or another.
It may be discarded after the 21-day storage limit, the blood collected may carry a disease or there may be clot­ting.
SOMETIMES the donor eats before giving blood, even though he is told not to.
When the blood bank opened, the hospital needed 18,000 bottles a year, but that was before the advent of open heart surgery or the use of perfusion in the treatment of cancer.
A heart surgery patient will use a minimum of 11 pints. In the use of perfusion, a chemical is circulated in the blood to kill marauding can­cer cells.
IF BLOOD is a life saver, it can also be lethal: That is why careful records as to blood type are kept on every patient who comes to the hos­pital.
Giving a patient the wrong blood type or wrong RH fac­tor may set up a reaction that can be fatal.
- That is why six medical technicians are on duty in the 12th floor blood bank area to carefully match the blood to be used with the patient's blood type and RH factor.
BLOOD IS COLLECTED on
the first floor by a staff of six nurses aided by 20 vol­unteers.
The same collection bottles and equipment were once used over and over. Now each unit is thrown away after use.
Recently, collection station facilities weer about doubled in size. Dr. Adriani boasts that they are the most mod­ern of any in the city.
But the best facilities do not solve his basic problem.
He is still fresh out of Type O-Negative blood. A person who needs it very badly may be wheeled into the Chanty Hospital operating room any minute. PHOTO: DR. JOHN ADRIANI director of the Charity blood bank, checks the supply on hand with MISS CONNIE DUPUY, a medical technologist in the department.