New York Blood Center warns of donor shortfall, plans Throggs Neck donor center for the Bronx

At a Bronx Borough Service Cabinet meeting on Jan. 12, 2026, Yitierra Navarro, director of community and stakeholder relations for the New York Blood Center, told board members the city and the Bronx continue to experience a shortfall in blood donations and urged local residents to donate.

Navarro said the New York Blood Center is one of the nation's largest nonprofit blood centers, supplying hospitals nationwide and managing a large rare blood inventory. She described a continuing decline in donations since 2012 that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic and has only partially recovered: "We're still down about 25% of community drives" and "still down about 33% for first-time donors," she said, characterizing those figures as approximate. Navarro said New York City has not consistently collected enough blood to meet the needs of its hospitals and that the Bronx shows a substantial gap between units collected locally and units distributed to Bronx hospitals.

Navarro announced a new Bronx donor center planned for the Throggs Neck Shopping Center, delayed by a cyber incident last year and targeted to open by February or early March (date approximate). The center will be able to collect whole blood, platelets and plasma, she said, allowing more regular and specialized donations.

Navarro described current supply levels as below the healthy benchmark: "a healthy blood supply is about a 7 day blood supply," she said, while adding that the system currently often falls in a 3'to'5 day range and approaches a 1'to'2 day supply during emergencies. She warned that while the New York Blood Center and its enterprise network meet hospitals' needs today, low reserves reduce the margin for responding to a large emergency.

In a question-and-answer period, Navarro directed attendees to the organization's website and QR code for contact information and appointment scheduling. She said donor eligibility follows U.S. Food and Drug Administration rules and can change over time; she also gave typical minimums attendees could expect: donors can be 16 with parental consent, donors over 75 need physician clearance, and donors are generally expected to weigh at least about 110 pounds. On the question of synthetic blood, Navarro said available synthetic products are short-term measures and are not a substitute for human donations at scale.

The borough president's office said it will distribute the presentation materials to board members and encouraged community boards to share the information with local organizations and consider hosting drives when the Throggs Neck center opens.

The New York Blood Center presentation and Q&A conclude with an invitation to schedule donations and with contact information to follow; Navarro said the organization would provide flyers, online resources and direct outreach to partners to expand recruitment in the Bronx.