American Red Cross — Local services in Wilmington

Poor management of the collection at New Hanover Medical Center.

I have been giving blood for a long time (76 pints to date) because I believe it is a great cause. I recently retired and relocated to the Wilmington area and attended my first attempt to donate at the drive at the hospital. I made an appointment because The Red Cross called me that morning (7/31/18) to say we are in an emergency situation. I had time so I made the appointment (for 1:45) and went. I was taken early because the woman in front of me had an iron level that was too low. Processing was smooth and I love that Rapid Pass speeds things up.

Here is where it fell apart. I was brought to my collection table and was ignored for TWENTY MINUTES. I did get to observe a lot of great interactions between the women taking blood and the donors. I also observed the woman in charge sending people on breaks and not paying attention to the donors; avoiding eye contact and not paying attention to who was next. I sat up...ignored. I stood up with arms crossed....ignored.

I had enough when people who walked into the room after I was already at my table were hooked up and the woman in charge announced she was going on break. I handed her my paperwork, told her about how upset I was and left.

I looked for a way to provide feedback on the app...nothing. I looked for a way to provide feedback on the website...nothing. I did not want to do a negative public post, but The Red Cross does not provide contacts other...

Red Cross will always get 5 stars in my book. I have donated a pretty good amount of blood in my time however the need for platelets is much higher. I donated platelets one time and swore I would never again because by the time I left the facility my body temp was so low it took 30 minutes to stop shaking. Although the staff gave me as many warm blankets as needed they barely helped. Here is the issue. The facility is kept at 68 degrees or lower which means that everything in the building, machines and IV bags of saline are the same temp. They took my 98.6 degree blood out of one arm put it through a cold machine and pumped it back in the other arm mixed with 68 degree saline. There is no way the body can keep warm. Very shocking to the body. I know for a fact that hospitals have blood warmers and brought this to the attention of higher ups at the RC. I thoroughly believe more people would give platelets if the RC would use blood warmers. I write this review because I hope the RC will do something about it so I and more donars will give platelets. I don't want a coffee mug a t-shirt or gift card instead buy...

After waiting over an hour past my scheduled appt time on 2 consecutive visits, I doubt that I will ever donate to this 16th Street donation center ever again. The first visit, I treated as a one off exception. But when it happened on my next visit with no apologies, I realized that this was their norm. So after an hour of waiting I walked out with someone else who had been waiting even longer.

If the people at 16th Street are volunteers (not paid), this might explain it. For otherwise, there is no excuse and they desperately need training on how to honor appt times. For if donors are going to the effort to 1) make time in our day, 2) fill out their 50 question prequalification form in advance, 3) show up on time, and 4) and sit on table with a needle in our arm for 30 minutes to donate our blood, the very least that they can do is...