By Cynthia McCormick | Cape Cod Times September 12, 2015
HYANNIS — Cape Cod Healthcare’s new bloodmobile is hitting the road today with a stop at the Seaside Le Mans at Mashpee Commons.
With four collection beds and two interview rooms, the $326,000 coach will be making the rounds of area businesses and organizations “five days a week, maybe more,” said Constance Patten, supervisor of the health care organization’s blood transfusion bank.
Cape Cod and Falmouth hospitals already hold blood drives in the community by setting up shop at fixed locations such as schools and churches, but the new bloodmobile will make hosting the drives more convenient, health care officials said.
“This vehicle is giving us the opportunity to go to smaller places that don’t have room to hold our equipment,” Patten said Friday during a media tour of the new bloodmobile.
HYANNIS — Cape Cod Healthcare’s new bloodmobile is hitting the road today with a stop at the Seaside Le Mans at Mashpee Commons.
With four collection beds and two interview rooms, the $326,000 coach will be making the rounds of area businesses and organizations “five days a week, maybe more,” said Constance Patten, supervisor of the health care organization’s blood transfusion bank.
Cape Cod and Falmouth hospitals already hold blood drives in the community by setting up shop at fixed locations such as schools and churches, but the new bloodmobile will make hosting the drives more convenient, health care officials said.
“This vehicle is giving us the opportunity to go to smaller places that don’t have room to hold our equipment,” Patten said Friday during a media tour of the new bloodmobile.
Cape Cod Healthcare runs 10 off-site blood drives a month, collecting an average of 24 units per drive. Health care officials have said they hope to double or triple the amount of blood collected.
Another appeal of the deep blue, 40-foot bloodmobile is its visibility, Patten said. When it was parked at 17 E. Main St. on Friday for a media tour, somebody passing by knocked on the door and asked to make a blood donation, she said.
An older vehicle Cape Cod Healthcare used to transport cabinets and tables to fixed donation sites is "pretty much retired," Patricia Cabana, marketing manager for Cape Cod Healthcare Laboratory Services, said.
The Cape’s Rotary clubs contributed $100,000 to the bloodmobile purchase from the proceeds of a “Black Tie Blood Red Auction and Masquerade Ball” this fall.
It was the Rotary clubs' first joint project but probably won’t be their last, Melissa Farrell, president-elect of the Yarmouth Rotary Club, said.
“The blood that they (collect) actually stays on Cape Cod,” she said. “It made a huge amount of sense for us to get involved.”
The masquerade ball was so successful that the Cape’s seven Rotary clubs hope to host another ball next spring for a charity yet to be selected, Farrell said.
Another appeal of the deep blue, 40-foot bloodmobile is its visibility, Patten said. When it was parked at 17 E. Main St. on Friday for a media tour, somebody passing by knocked on the door and asked to make a blood donation, she said.
An older vehicle Cape Cod Healthcare used to transport cabinets and tables to fixed donation sites is "pretty much retired," Patricia Cabana, marketing manager for Cape Cod Healthcare Laboratory Services, said.
The Cape’s Rotary clubs contributed $100,000 to the bloodmobile purchase from the proceeds of a “Black Tie Blood Red Auction and Masquerade Ball” this fall.
It was the Rotary clubs' first joint project but probably won’t be their last, Melissa Farrell, president-elect of the Yarmouth Rotary Club, said.
“The blood that they (collect) actually stays on Cape Cod,” she said. “It made a huge amount of sense for us to get involved.”
The masquerade ball was so successful that the Cape’s seven Rotary clubs hope to host another ball next spring for a charity yet to be selected, Farrell said.
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