Nation’s First Community Blood Bank Celebrates 65th Anniversary

June 14, 2006

Anniversary Bittersweet as Blood Center Braces for Another Summertime Blood Shortage

The nation’s very first community blood bank, founded in San Francisco,is celebrating its 65 th anniversary this month. Blood Centers of the Pacific (BCP), formerly known as the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank, opened its doors to community blood donation in June of 1941 and has been helping Bay Area residents give the gift of life to patients in need ever since.

Prior to 1941, the concept of a community blood bank didn’t exist. Although some hospitals had small drawing stations, there was no adequate method of obtaining and storing enough blood for patients who needed emergency transfusions. Two San Francisco physicians, working with the San Francisco Medical Society (SFMS), founded the fledging blood center, which was granted permission to operate out of the basement of the Irwin Mansion in Nob Hill, which the SMFS owned.

Since that time, BCP has grown tremendously, now operating 12 donation centers, hundreds of mobile blood drives and providing lifesaving volunteer blood donations to 41 hospitals throughout Northern California. BCP provides 140,000 pints of lifesaving volunteer blood donations each year.

But while BCP celebrates this special occasion, officials remain deeply concerned about the region’s constant blood shortages. Of those people eligible to give blood in the Bay Area, less than 4 percent do. As a result, BCP must import 20 percent of its blood from outside the state. Blood shortages become particularly acute in the summer, as many regular blood donors go on vacation and the need for blood rises due to accidents and scheduled surgeries.

Donated blood is used to treat accidents victims, new mothers and their babies, organ transplant recipients, cancer patients and many more. To make an appointment to donate blood, visit http://www.bloodcenters.org or call 888-393-GIVE.