A national blood shortage has prompted state lawmakers to consider giving island blood donors income tax credits to improve Hawaii’s struggling blood supply.
House Bill 1556 would offer tax incentives to those who donate at least four times a year. If the tax credits exceed the taxpayer’s amount due, the excess credit would be refunded. Another bill, HB 1557, would award tax credits per donation to employers who host blood drives. HB 1556 was still alive Friday, but its companion bill, Senate Bill 2754, was deferred Jan. 28.
Supporters hope that incentives result in more and more frequent donations after the American Red Cross and the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapeutics declared a national blood crisis in January.
“This is the first time that the term ‘national blood crisis’ has been applied to the situation of the United States blood supply,” said Kim-Anh Nguyen, CEO of the Blood Bank of Hawaii. “We haven’t been hit as long and as hard as the U.S. mainland, fortunately, but we have been hit with more blood shortages since COVID.”
Because of the nearly 2-year-old COVID-19 pandemic, regular blood drives are disappearing around Hawaii high schools, colleges, large businesses and churches. Before COVID-19, blood drives could be counted on to generate about 33% of Hawaii’s blood supply.
January was particularly bad. Patients typically want to schedule surgeries after the holidays, at the same time that people are too busy or distracted to donate blood.
Some hospitals started their mornings with less than half of a day’s supply of blood, Nguyen said.
“It’s very frightening when we all sit and think of what will happen next with the next motor vehicle accident on the H-1,” Nguyen said. “What happens when there’s a big trauma on a neighbor island?”
Jenny Liu, a 29-year-old pediatric resident at the Hawaii Residency Program, donated blood again for the first time Thursday, after temporarily halting her donations during her residency.
“Being in the medical field, it’s not uncommon for me to see the patients that need blood,” Liu said. “So to be able to contribute to that is a really good thing.”
Liu understands the hectic schedules of potential donors but said that it’s easy to go online to book an appointment, which allows donors to give back to their communities.
Haily Burnett, 25, of Palolo does not like the idea of tax incentives, but hopes they might attract more and new donors.
“It honestly does kind of suck thinking that people need an incentive to go out to help the community and help save lives,” Burnett said. “Considering that people aren’t showing up to their appointments, and they’re not taking it seriously because it is on a volunteer basis … maybe if they did know that they would have some type of incentive, then maybe people would show up to their appointments.”
Rep. Ryan Yamane (D, Mililani-Waipio Gentry- Waikele) chairs the House Health, Human Services and Homelessness Committee and supports HB 1556.
Yamane and his fellow lawmakers have been concerned about Hawaii’s blood supply since COVID-19 and decided that an incentive is necessary, despite the complications of tax credits.
Thomas Yamachika, president of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii, said that cutting donors a check would be easier, compared with tax credits.
“Tax returns are very, very complicated,” Yamachika said. “Not everybody knows what to do when they get one. I think, for a lot of people, especially the ones who the Legislature wants to help the most, probably would rather look the other way when they see a tax return.”
Technology has enabled individuals to give more blood per donation. And recent publicity of the blood shortage has brought a few more donors to the Blood Bank of Hawaii, Nguyen said. But she warned that the shortage continues and the current approach is unsustainable, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year.
Regardless of what happens to HB 1556, Nguyen said she’s grateful for any support for the blood bank. She hopes that a discussion over HB 1556 will at least inspire more people to donate and help fill the demand.
“Just the fact that everyone in our community knows that our Senate and representative leaders prioritize the blood supply enough to create this bill,” Nguyen said, “I think that in and of itself will motivate our community to donate.”
By the numbers
26,483
Number of individual donors to the Blood Bank of Hawaii in 2019
22,496
Blood bank donors in 2020
21,260
Blood bank donors in 2021
Source: Blood Bank of Hawaii
