New York Blood Center - Upper East Side Donor Center — Local services in New York

Usually, I have a good experience at this blood donation center. I do the questionnaire, get screened, and sit down. This whole process takes about 10 minutes. However, I went today, and they were pretty busy. I can understand there's a wait. However, I will not recommend the lady who screened me. She is by far the most incompetent person who works there. I think her name is Mary. She's a skinny Black lady with a little accent. If you can, please avoid her at all costs.

First, she looked like she didn't want to be there. That's fine. However, you still have a job to do. She tried scanning my ID card, but it wouldn't go through. I suggested that she try to manually type it, but she claimed she had to follow the operating procedure. She was gone for about 5 minutes, came back, and manually entered the number. She wasted time for nothing. She asked what countries I visited, and I told her. She went to look in her book, and I assured her that I donated before. They have my donation history in the file, considering the last time I went (which was last week), they told me the last time I donated. She checked her book of countries to see if I was medically cleared. She was very lazy about the screening process as well. She took my HCT and had the thermometer under my tongue. She put in a sample of my blood in the HCT reader and left to go elsewhere. The number popped up, and this was the first time the number went away. She took that long to come back. What a horrible worker. This other lady screened 3 people by the time I was done. That's why I call Mary grossly incompetent.

Anyway, I went to sit down, and I was really hoping the Black nurse/HCA would do it because I think he's the most experienced, and I've had nothing but good experiences. I waited patiently, then Mary came and said she would handle it. She asked me for my name again and seemed to not remember me at all. That's okay. I think she would remember because I only saw her like 30 minutes ago.

She went off to look in her book of "how to" again, and did the poking. It hurt like usual which isn't a problem. However, she retracted the syringe, applied a lot more pressure on the cuff, and stuck me again. It hurt a bit, but I thought it was fine. I asked her to relieve some pressure because my arm was getting numb. She said to wait a bit. No, you're supposed to attend to the Pt's concerns. If I don't have feeling on my arm, you have to try to alleviate that. Why is this incompetent person here? Finally, after a minute or 2, she relieved pressure, and everything was fine. Then the machine kept beeping stating that there wasn't enough pressure. She didn't get the vein. She opened up the bandage to reveal a giant bruise on the spot she did the IV on. Then she claimed that I had sensitive veins and that I should apply ice on it.

This lady was extremely condescending and such an absolute dunce. I like donating blood, but I hope to never have her for any part of the process whether it be the screening or...

I've had the most difficult time donating blood here through no fault of NYBC. I was either too anemic or discovering I'd developed hypertension. Thanks for letting me know! So I honestly expected something to go wrong this time as well.

My appointment was to donate plasma. I figured I would be less wiped out that way. Next time I'm donating platelets because I have too many of them anyway.

The process was more interactive than I expected. I thought I was going to just lay back and read some fan fic. Nope. I had to keep squeezing a rubber bulb and my machine kept alarming. Come to find out that my phlebotomist was the worst one there and didn't give me correct information. And "worse" is relative because all the others were outstanding.

The thing about a plasma donation is that they extract the plasma then return your red blood cells to you. A plasma or platelet donation is different from whole blood in that they get three times as much of plasma or platelets in one go. But the return is why I didn't get a chance to read. Though my The phlebotomist said I didn’t have to watch the machine (wrong) I had to watch the machine in order to not pump the bulb during the blood return. When she had me doing it before, the machine kept buzzing and shutting off. You'd think the 3rd time she had to reset it she would have realized it was a problem. Good thing she wandered away and a better phlebotomist explained what was going on.

With all the squeezing and watching, the 40 minute donation time surprisingly flew by. Now comes the best part... the cranberry juice and Laura Doone cookies! All the juice and cookies you want! I was in competition with another donor for the cranberry juice. I got the last one! Ha! This is when I got my chance to read. There's no rush. They really don't want you fainting on them, so hydrate as much as you need to. There's deliciously cold water as well.

Pro Tip: Bring your donor card. You don't need it, they'll ask for state ID instead, but it's just easier to scan it than to manually type your information in.

Plus you earn points for merch! Looks like 600 points is the minimum to cash out and at that level you get various $25 gift cards. I'm torn between Amazon or Bed Bath & Beyond because I want a new vacuum cleaner and I don't know which is the better deal. I got 75 points for this donation so I've got... 96 donations more to go for a top of the line Dyson!!! Yeah... that's not happening...

DONT GO TO THIS SITE!

Really disappointed with this place and the overall experience from giving blood here. On 10/27/21, I donated and knew something was wrong during it. The girl who applied the tourniquet and found the vein was concerned about something but reassuring, not articulating her show of concern when I asked. The person she got to review what she did was concerned but reassuring as well, not verbally acknowledging an issue when I asked. The supervisor or manager came over with both employees and looked, also not verbally stating an issue. I finally got them to tell me what they were so concerned about as they weren’t hovering over any of the other donors that were there. My rate of bleeding was very fast from what they said and that no one there had seen it done that fast. I filled the pint or amount in 3 minutes and 33 seconds. I could overhear the two employees even in the distance joking about tapping a artery. Something I dismissed, as I felt fine I thought and didn’t want to create any anxiousness. This would definitely change later. As my arm went on to swell up, skin turn black and purple, tingling, lose warmth from lack of circulation and become sore from continuing to bleed within my arm. I ended up in NYU, where my personal doctor said more than likely they tapped my artery which has higher pressure and I continued bleeding in my forearm/bicep. Last Friday, I finished a MRI all related to this and my arm is still sore with purple bruising from the blood that is sitting on top of my tendons/muscles. My range of motion is limited from the hardened blood in my arm and has great moments of discomfort. Hopefully, this shall take a couple weeks to resolve but it won’t be a big issue according to my doctor.

All of this as an experience, I would not recommend going to this location at this time. If the cause wasn’t positive, I would be far more upset. Providing things keep it’s course, I wouldn’t go here again and I have already discouraged friends/coworkers from...