All blood donated through Red Cross comes from volunteer donors - caring people like you. Each donation is a gift to a patient in need. There is never a charge for blood itself. To cover the expenses of recruiting, collection, testing, processing and distributing blood and blood products, Red Cross charges a processing fee to hospitals. The charge appears on the patient's hospital bill and is usually covered by health insurance.
Blood is essential to life.
No artificial substitute can replace the functions of human blood. When hospital patients need blood, they depend on your donation. Remember that blood is needed all the time - not just when someone you know gets hurt or sick. Every 2 minutes someone in our area receives blood. 142,819 units of whole blood were collected in 1999-2000 fiscal year by the Red Cross to serve patients at 88 hospitals in the Tennessee Valley Region, which includes 7 southernmost counties of Illinois, part of Southeast Missouri, Western Kentucky, and Middle Tennessee.