New York Blood Center and New York City Transit Partner to Bring in Blood; MTA Buses Carry Message Asking Community to Give Blood

NEW YORK, Aug. 3 -- Over 1,000 MTA NYC Transit Authority buses in New York City’s five boroughs have started displaying new interior posters, with space generously provided by Viacom Outdoor, encouraging city residents to donate blood. The message will let riders know that “Somebody needs you,” and plead, “Save a life. Donate Blood.” Hopefully these messages will encourage New Yorkers to roll up their sleeves and give blood during the summer, which is typically an extremely difficult time to recruit donors, and beyond. The city’s blood supply is currently at a three-day level, two days below the five-day supply New York Blood Center (NYBC) and hospitals prefer to have available.

Robert Jones, MD, New York Blood Center President and CEO stated, “New York City Transit is already a generous blood donor group and a great partner in the community, and we are very happy to expand our existing relationship with them and Viacom Outdoor by displaying these messages on our city’s buses. We hope that the community responds by giving the gift of life and donating blood especially in August before the Labor Day holiday weekend”.

During the summer months and holiday periods the need for blood, given elective surgeries, vacation and other factors, is higher than normal, while recruiting donors is particularly difficult. New York Blood Center and the NY-NJ hospitals we serve hope that these new approaches of getting out the message about regular blood donation will prove an effective means to inspire New York and New Jersey residents to give blood and fill the gap between what is needed and what is available.

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New York Blood Center (NYBC), one of the nation’s largest non- profit, community-based blood centers, has been providing blood, transfusion products and services to patients in New York and New Jersey hospitals since 1964. NYBC is also home to the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute, the National Cord Blood Program and the Milstein National Cord Blood Center, the world’s first and largest public cord blood bank. NYBC provides medical services and programs (Clinical, Transfusion and Hemophilia Services) through our medical professionals and transfusion medicine physicians.

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