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Michigan hospitals need more blood donations this holiday season

"Donating blood" by akrabat is licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

Michigan is facing a shortage of blood donations as the holidays approach.

Blood donations usually dip during the holidays, according to Dawn Kaiser, who's Vice President at Versiti in Michigan. The company collects blood donations across the Midwest and Kaiser says donations declined this year more than usual, because high schools have been online only for a number of weeks, and many businesses are closed.

"We’re limited on space for mobile blood drives, just in the community. So we’re looking for more opportunity there.”

Kaiser says Versiti has needed to bring in blood from other states to meet the demand in Michigan in recent months.