If you’ve ever tuned in to one of Bloodworks Northwest’s “Code Red” announcements, then you know first-hand how effective their messaging is. Potential donors are encouraged to schedule appointments online, and with one click they are greeted by a large banner across the homepage that reads, “Our local blood supply is running on fumes.” There is also an illustration of an empty fuel gauge, just in case the text on its own wasn’t convincing enough. Confronted with this dire state of affairs, you’d have to be crazy not to give blood, right?
Maybe, but if you’ve responded to enough of these public appeals, you may have also experienced the confusion of arriving days later to your appointment only to see that supply levels are suddenly listed “operational,” the highest rating of availability for any donation type. Could it be that, with an outpouring of community support, the blood supply really bounced back that quickly?
The truth is slightly more complicated, and suggests that Bloodworks’ marketing team may be compensating for a lack of precision with emotional appeal. To truly understand what has happened in this less than fictional scenario, we have to take a more neutral look at the community blood supply, not through the lens of Bloodworks or any other organization that exploits it as a resource.
We must first dispel the myth that the blood supply is in some righteous warehouse in Renton’s industrial district. While this is a convenient public perception for Bloodworks, what really matters is the blood on-hand at local hospitals; it is only of any use to the doctors and nurses in our community. Without them, it doesn’t matter how much blood sits in a warehouse, and thus the availability of blood in medical facilities is a more honest measure of the blood supply.
Considering Bloodworks’ claim that they supply blood to 95% of hospitals in the Pacific Northwest, the responsibility vested in them is difficult to overstate. But that statistic, in the context of Bloodworks’ other marketing material, can easily be misinterpreted to mean that Bloodworks collects 95% of the blood used by hospitals in the Pacific Northwest. This is not so, as hospitals try not to rely solely on one supplier when possible. Historically, the community blood supply has been primarily maintained by three blood centers in Washington state: Bloodworks Northwest, The American Red Cross, and, until February 2024, Cascade Regional Blood Services.
But what organization wants to acknowledge their competition? Bloodworks doesn’t financially benefit from blood donated with The American Red Cross. In simplest terms, Bloodworks defines a blood shortage the way they do, specifically as five days in a row with “emergency” level inventory, because they believe it will cause more people to give blood. Furthermore, if Bloodworks fails to collect enough blood, they are forced to purchase blood products from other organizations to meet their supply orders.
This is what happens when Bloodworks’ blood forecast report goes from “red” for emergency to “green” for operational, often overnight. And while this may confuse a donor who’s been hounded repeatedly by the “donor care team” that their blood is vital to stemming the shortage, one can hardly fault Bloodworks for wanting to collect as much blood as possible. What harm could possibly come from such a noble purpose?
In December 2023, CEO Curt Bailey announced that starting in the new year, Bloodworks would become the primary supplier of blood components and the exclusive provider of apheresis treatment services to the six hospitals in the Puget Sound area operated by MultiCare: Tacoma General Hospital (including Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital inside Tacoma General), Allenmore Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital, Auburn Hospital, Covington Hospital, and Capitol Medical Center. He explained that Cascade Regional Blood Services, who had previously held this contract with MultiCare, would be “transitioning its donors to Bloodworks,” but ultimately closing its doors by February 29, 2024. Bailey has since made very little public comment about Cascade, calling them “courageous” but “too small,” and that they “couldn’t survive financially in this difficult world that we are in.”
But perhaps more telling than Bailey’s comments are what he hasn’t said. While words like “transition” and “collaborators” imply a merger between the two organizations, many former Cascade donors express confusion when they arrive at their first Bloodworks appointment to find that none of their information has been transferred and there is no record of any of their previous donations. A new, rather inelegant recruitment campaign from Bloodworks appropriates the very identity of their former competition, imploring donors to “do good. Start the Cascade. Share your Cascade Blood.” Marketing aside, there is little evidence of Cascade’s legacy behind the scenes, as Cascade’s former employees did not receive the same warm “transition” to Bloodworks that their donors did.
Cascade’s closure is not anomalous within the American private healthcare system. While elsewhere in the world, blood is collected through government programs such as the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, in the U.S. blood centers are, as Bloodworks puts it, “independent” non-profit corporations. Its finances are based overwhelmingly on the sale of blood products to hospitals collected from volunteer donors. They do not receive public funding in the same way as other non-profits like PBS or The Humane Society. Like anything, this model comes with pros and cons, but it does free Bloodworks to exercise its “independence” in ways that have more in common with Seattle neighbors Starbucks and Amazon than with government-sponsored programs like TRICARE.
Until spring of 2023, Bloodworks was the only non-unionized blood center in Washington state. It has since hired attorneys from infamous anti-labor law firm Davis Grimm Payne & Marra in an attempt to brutally suppress a union campaign that began at their Olympia location. Over the past twelve months, three charges of “unfair labor practices,” or breaching federal labor law, have been filed against Bloodworks. These allegations include withholding a company-wide wage increase from Olympia employees, as well as harassment and intimidation of individual workers. These charges are still under investigation by the National Labor Relations Board.
Bloodworks Northwest’s image requires its donors to accept it as a public institution, but the trail it leaves behind reveals some of the same unsavory business practices as its for-profit brethren. If this is how, in Bailey’s words, “Bloodworks honors the legacy of Cascade’s service to the community,” donors may consider supporting The American Red Cross instead.
Also in this issue: Bloodworks Northwest’s Attempt to Stifle Olympia Union
This piece was submitted anonymously by a donor with close ties to current and former Bloodworks employees involved in the union
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