Hospital Blood Bank Program At VSOS

Animals can require life saving blood transfusions for a variety of reasons.

Trauma cases can suffer acute haemorrhage, and patients undergoing risky surgeries may develop secondary bleeds or major vessel lacerations.

Anaemic animals can have low red blood cell levels due to parasite infections, and immune-mediated conditions like IMHA.

Toxicities like snake or spider envenomations and rat bait poisoning may also benefit from blood transfusions. With such a wide caseload, we rely on generous clients and staff to join our program with one-off or regular blood donations to continue to provide our care.

We take the utmost care to ensure your furbaby receives gold standard treatment like the superhero they are throughout their visit with us.

Some clipper rash or bruising may develop from the venipuncture site but our team of highly trained staff take all possible action to reduce this.

For those excitable dogs or nervous cats, we may use sedation to ensure they stay calm and still throughout the procedure, their drugs are carefully selected on an individual basis by our team of experienced veterinarians.

Just like humans, dogs and cats also have blood types. Dogs are tested for the DEA.1 (Dog Erythrocyte Antigen) and can be either positive or negative for it.

About 60% of dogs are DEA.1 Negative which is great because we consider this blood group universal donors since they can donate to both positive and negative recipients.

Cats have performed antibodies and can be A type, B type or AB types. Type A cats are the most common and domestic short hairs and long hairs often represent this population.

Canine whole blood can be stored in the fridge for 31 days from collection but feline
blood can only be stored for 24hrs.

This is why we are proud to run an in clinic cat program to help us provide life saving treatments and endless staff cuddles. We rely on local blood donors that are willing to come in at the last minute for emergency cases
that need fresh whole blood transfusions vs stored as the components change once refrigerated.