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Comment by trashface | Hacker News Reader

In the US when I lived on the west coast there were dedicated blood centers where you could donate. I have O neg blood which I think gets given to infants, so they would often call me up and get me scheduled as soon as I was eligible after the waiting period between donations. I was sometimes sluggish about scheduling a donation, but still managed to go over 20 times in the few years I lived out there.

Then I moved to east coast, and there is basically none of that infrastructure, you have to find a mobile blood bank or be aware of some event or community site that sometimes hosts them. I'm bad at that kind of community awareness, so the upshot is I haven't donated once in the 15 years I've lived here. Always surprised by that since there are so many more people on the east coast, I'm not sure where all the blood is coming from since they are so bad about getting people to do regular donations.

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Where at? Where I live in Pennsylvania, and not the most populated of areas, there are at least 3 groups open all the time for donations (two local Hospital systems and the regional Blood Bank). Plus, there are no less then three mobile blood drives at fire halls; schools; churches; civic centers (i.e. VFW; Lions; Elks, etc...); libraries; etc... seemingly every week. If you don't see signs, you often see it posted in grocery stores, libraries, anywhere a community billboard might be.

Valley forge area, but also up and down montgomery county, I've never seen a dedicated blood bank. If the hospitals are taking blood they aren't advertising that. The local Y has a mobile blood bank occasionally, but I've missed it every time. I never see blood donation ads anywhere except the Y (I would miss ones in churches and most community centers though).

Not to be snarky, but I grew up in ChesCo, and could've sworn there were donation centers way back even in the 90's, near KoP and West Chester.

https://www.giveapint.org/ Locations in Pottstown/Exton, plus St Luke's Hospital

Red Cross, lots coming up: https://www.redcrossblood.org/give.html/drive-results?dt=WB:...

Supposedly CHOP has locations too. They do wonderful work.

You grew up in the wealthiest county in the state, some selection bias there. Look on google maps for blood donation center in the philadelphia area. Zoom out to get the suburbs. There are what, 20 or so sites listed, for an area with a population of 6 or 7 million people? That is insufficient. Even now the closest one to me is actually a drug testing site, not a donation center. Its probably at least a 30 minute drive (in bad traffic) to get to the closest listed donation center.

I grew up in lower bucks. There were no dedicated blood centers. Before I was 22 I had never donated at anything but a mobile bloodbank. My parents hauled themselves to mobile blood banks whenever they wanted to do it. The first actual dedicated blood center I donated at was blood centers of the pacific in San Francisco. I was shocked that someone would actually build a dedicated site just for donating blood. But then later I saw Oregon did it too.

Also there's this: https://www.inquirer.com/health/blood-donation-shortage-phil...

There was one point I was trying to make, you said there are no locations currently near you, I posted three, plus mobile units.

There is also no selection bias. I said that in the 90's there were several near West Chester and KoP. You say ChesCo is the wealthiest. Wealth in ChesCo is entirely concentrated within the KoP; West Chester; and Valley Forge area. Which would be accurate to what I said. I did not grow up anywhere near there, rather in a very poor region, which is most of the county. It is a large county.

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