Authors: (including presenting author): :
Kong SY (1), Chu CY (1), Li SY (1), Lam SY (1), Chan ML (1), Chan ML (1), Chan SF (1), Chan WH (1), Ng KY (1), Tang C (1), Lee CK (1)
Affiliation: :
(1) Hong Kong Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service
Keyword 1: :
Disaster management
Keyword 2: :
Blood Service
Introduction: :
Disaster situations require a timely and coordinated response by health services, including the provision of blood products. The Tai Po fire on 26 November 2025 which caused 161 death and 79 injuries devastated all Hong Kong people. Standing in full solidarity with victims, Hong Kong people immediately called for a blood donation appeal. Shortly afterwards, long queues were seen at all blood donation venues. Blood Transfusion Service (BTS) faced immense pressure in service provision, donor management, blood processing, testing and inventory control.
Objectives: :
This article aims to review the practical considerations of BTS in disaster management.
Methodology: :
1. Managing blood donors surge while avoiding blood product wastage: An abrupt upsurge in donation number could result in unpleasant donation experience, blood product wastage due to their limited shelf life and jeopardize blood supply in the long run. It is, therefore, imperative to implement crowd control with a flexible quota system at donation venues and send thoughtful messages to public on the blood inventory level and the importance of regular blood donation. Internally, waiting time and blood collection statistics are closely monitored with deployment of additional manpower and blood collection consumables. Preparedness was also made to transition blood collection service to unaffected areas. 2. Channeling kindness and support from the community into actions: People would be frustrated upon deferral for blood donation due to various health conditions. Their goodwill should be duly acknowledged and reasons of deferral are comprehensively counselled. Future appointments were made for deferred donors to engage them remain in the blood donor pool. Lapsed blood donors would also reemerge and reconnect with BTS at times of adversity. Their follow up is particularly useful. 3. Addressing potential increase in blood demand, blood processing and burden to inventory capacity: While ensuring adequate blood stocks in hospitals, preexisting inventories are instrumental to address the surge in demand. Hospital demand of blood products is scrutinized by BTS and frequent review is crucial to ensure adequate blood processing, testing and storage capacity for all donated blood. 4. External communication with public and stakeholders: With information overload from social media, it is crucial for BTS to provide clear messages to media and public for need of blood and how to better coordinate the blood donation effort. BTS liaises through HAHO for official information dissemination. Similarly, working with community partners is needed to organize ad hoc blood drives that could meet blood demand but not overloading our capacity.
Result & Outcome: :
On the day after Tai Po fire, blood donation tripled its number of the baseline. New and lapsed donors came up and accounted for 23.4% and 49.7% among all donors that day. Triaging prospective donors through different appointment booking platforms, their donations were spaced out in the coming weeks. After confirming site suitability of already scheduled blood donation vehicle at Tai Po, all blood collection sites adopted flexible arrangement to maximize community participation. BTS also received a significant increase in the volume in accessing BTS webpage and mobile apps (21 times and 16 times increase from baseline respectively). BTS ensured accurate information dissemination through HAHO. Appreciation was received from donors about BTS staff dedication in response to disaster. In the following two weeks, blood donation remained significantly high with additional blood drives supported by our community stakeholders. On the other hand, hospitals’ blood demand remained stable after the fire. As such, BTS maintained good inventory level by the Christmas time. Apart from follow up of lapsed donors, BTS also launched program to convert group AB whole blood donors to apheresis donation as the requirement of group AB red cells was generally not high.
