BY ARIANA GATTI and JESSICA ROUSE

Red Cross Australia has put out an urgent plea for Hunter residents to donate Type O blood due to supplies being at a critical low with donors too sick with the winter flu to donate.

Cold and flu viruses have forced around 1,000 donors across Australia to cancel their donation appointments after falling ill.

“Generally speaking winter is our toughest time of the year purely because of the amount of flu’s and colds that are around you cant donate blood until after you’ve made a full recovery, so our regular blood donors, once they get the flu, they can’t come into donate so we need to find new people over winter,” said community relations officer for the Newcastle blood donor centre Brian Bruce.

The call is out for Type O blood as they’re in the most scarce supply. Type O is the most common blood type and is used universally for people who come into hospital and need transfusions after accidents or injury until they’re stabilised and their blood type is found.

Brian Bruce says it’s a rare occasion that they put the call out for Type O blood, but supplies are more critical than ever.
“We’re encouraging people with o-type blood to come in the next two weeks and donate because after that we should be okay. Its not very often we have a critical call out for o-type blood donors but at the moment the supplies are really low.”