Appeal for Tipp blood donors to contribute this week

Photo courtesy of IBTS

Blood donations clinics are taking place in Tipperary this week with an appeal for donors as demand for supplies increases.

Clinics are being held in Thurles at the Dome in Semple Stadium from today until Thursday with clinics open from 5pm to 8.15 each evening.

Meanwhile Scoil Eoin Naofa on Golden Grove Road in Roscrea will have clinics from 3.45 to 8pm on Wednesday and Thursday.

Philip Cousins is Donation Services Manager with the Irish Blood Transfusion Service.

“In the last 4 or 5 weeks the demand from hospitals has gone up very considerably – we’ve been over 2,400 issues to the hospitals over that period which even pre-Covid would have been very high.”

“Now our collections have been excellent for the last number of months but we are beginning to see its getting harder to get donors in the door and I think part of that is with the lockdown lifting people are getting back to their activities.”

“So it is a little bit more difficult to get people in the door but we need to with the hospitals requiring so much blood.”

All blood donations are appointment based – details can be found on the IBTS website – www.giveblood.ie