Ukrainian blood bank leaders look to Chicago area hospitals for help

The entourage walked slowly through Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s blood bank, winding past lab technicians, centrifuges and refrigerators holding blood samples.

Every few steps, the three people at the heart of the visit — blood bank and blood system leaders from Ukraine — paused to ask questions through a translator.

They had traveled more than 5,000 miles, during a war, to see how Northwestern and other Illinois hospitals and blood centers operate, in hopes of improving blood services in Ukraine. The country had already begun work to reform its blood system before the start of the war, a crisis that made the job more important than ever.

It’s a blood system that serves civilians and military personnel.

“The war began unexpectedly for everyone in Ukraine,” said Oleksandr Serhiienko, deputy director general for the Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Center, through a translator. “We had to modernize all our efforts to ensure that the donor blood will be present in all the places where it’s needed.”

In Ukraine, the war with Russia has meant the closure of some blood centers and the destruction of others, he said.

“We deliver blood to places where blood centers are ruined as well as to the front lines,” he said.

The Ukrainian officials spent the day at Northwestern Tuesday learning about how the American health care and blood donation systems work, and sharing their experiences. Northwestern blood bank leaders explained how they plan for disasters, mass casualty events and how they manage blood shortages.

The Northwestern blood bank gets most of its blood from Versiti Blood Center of Illinois, said Dr. Glenn Ramsey, medical director of the Northwestern Memorial Hospital Blood Bank. Versiti holds blood drives and has centers where people can donate blood, plasma or platelets.

Red blood cells are given to patients who need more blood, and plasma and platelets are for patients who need help clotting, said Ramsey who is also director of transfusion medicine in pathology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

When a patient needs blood, Northwestern’s blood bank performs tests to make sure donor blood is compatible with a patient’s. It then dispenses the blood, platelets and plasma to operating rooms, inpatient wards and outpatient clinics, Ramsey said.

It’s not unusual for hospitals to face blood shortages during the summer and winter holidays, when people are too busy to donate or not going into offices, which often host blood drives. During the last few years, those shortages have been compounded by the challenges of COVID-19, he said. Northwestern tries to limit the use of blood to those who really need it most during those times, sometimes changing the criteria for who can get a transfusion, Ramsey said.

It’s part of what Northwestern discussed with the visiting Ukranians Tuesday.

“We’re hoping this will be useful for them,” Ramsey said. “We’re hoping they can take back the information.”

It’s a whirlwind visit for the Ukrainians, who are visiting several additional Chicago-area hospitals and blood centers this week, including University of Chicago Medicine, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Vitalant and Elmhurst Hospital. Their trip is sponsored by the Congressional Office for International Leadership, which is an agency that has an exchange program for Eurasian leaders and future leaders to visit the U.S. Their visit is being coordinated by the Council of International Programs in Chicago.

The trio in Chicago is one of a number of groups of Ukrainian medical professionals visiting the U.S. now.

“We almost don’t sleep because we have to respond to (our places of work), and the needs in Ukraine and, at the same time, learn here,” said Nataliia Mizynets, head of the blood bank at Rivne Regional Clinical Hospital, through a translator.

But the Chicago area visit is important, she said, “because we receive both civil and servicemen during the war, and the number of wounded will only grow.”

lschencker@chicagotribune.com