Blood has to be processed through the crooked RC, it is a month long process, it is a fragile product, and thus does not have a long shelf life.
Platelets are a better way to go, they keep longer.
But if you have surgery planned you can pre bank your own blood, just do it a month before.
They no longer do donor to patient transfusions, every thing goes through the RC process.
We were faced with this issue when my DIL had to have a fast Mastectomy for stage 3 breast cancer. Sloppy doc wanted to do a radical, she wanted a skin sparing type. He nicked a vein, and had to go back in and repair it, as she was Bleeding OUT, they still wanted to treat it as a same day surgery. I threw a fit and they kept her over night.
24 hrs later I was taking her back to the ER as she was Bleeding out again. She had lost so much blood she needed a transfusion. She did NOT get 1, she is A-, None available. All she got was a 2 day stay in the hospital with IV and pain meds. And a script for iron pills, with no real instructions on usage or side effects. They don’t fill Iron pill scripts. You buy them in the Vitamin isle. Good thing I know about them, I had to buy them. And the WalMart didn’t have the Slo Fe kind which are the better ones.
Iron pills are not a good sub for a blood transfusion.
Thank you for that information.