Monday 01 March 2021
On Friday 19 February at around 16.00 hours a delivery of platelets destined for Jersey was flown in error to Guernsey.
During the pandemic it has been a greater challenge than normal to try to ensure a continuous supply of 'platelets' are available for urgent patient use. These are a very short dated blood product, with unpredictable usage and are potentially lifesaving for a bleeding patient.
The reduced flights to both islands as a result of the pandemic, currently operating Mon, Wed, Fri with none at the weekends, has made this more difficult to manage still. We are very grateful to all our local donors, although some importation is still needed.
Jacqui Wheatley, Head of Blood Transfusion and Blood Donor Services said:
'As soon as we saw the platelets had arrived in error we also realised that there wouldn't be another flight from Southampton until Monday afternoon to either island, and Jersey would be left without the necessary stock of platelets until late on Monday.
Some quick research informed us that the final Condor Clipper to Jersey had just arrived into Guernsey and hadn't yet departed. Although we haven't used Condor for blood transportation since the Icelandic ash cloud, we were able to contact their freight manager, Karl Margetts, for assistance. Thanks to Karl's immediate response the platelets were loaded on board around 10 mins before departure and Jersey received the delivery later that evening.'
Julie Bellamy, Laboratory Manager, Jersey Pathology Department said:
'Thanks to the swift thinking of our Guernsey counterparts, the platelets ordered for Jersey arrived in good order and prevented us from having a shortage of platelets left on Island over the weekend.
This is yet another great example of how our Island laboratories work in collaboration for the good of our patients'
Both islands are very grateful to Condor for making this possible.
