United Blood Services Current Blood Prices Much Higher than Gasoline Scottsdale Arizona

I was a recent employee of United Blood Service of Arizona Donor Recruitment Department.  In December of 2009, the entire managment team of Donor Recruitment in Arizona filed a hostile work environment complaint to local Human Resources Director about the Director of Recruitment in Arizona.  Since that date and too date, there continue to be issues in this department.  The Director was given a "Behavior Coach" in April of 2010 and this Behavior Coach bragged about the "cost" the company was paying her to "mentor" our Director.  She continues to work with this coach one year later on a weekly basis.  This coach told our team that the Director was one of the worst 5 cases she had ever worked with.   The Director flat out was and is a bully period.  She used intimidation tatics, reviews and corrective action (unjustly) to seek her vengence.  Human Resourses did little to nothing to help and the Director of Operations for Arizona only interviewed the complaining employees once in April of 2010.  Corporate HR got involved when anonomous complaints started being filed.  This Corporate HR member was forwarned about one employee specificially still being targeted yet local HR did nothing again.  Corporate HR went away just as fast as they came to ask specific questions about one of the managers.  The Local HR department then stated that "all is well", which was far from the truth.  UBS needs to look into Bullying HRGs and take Bullying more seriously.   Then entire Donor Recruitment Department knew all about the allegations and therefore the fear runs through most employees under this Directors umbrella.  Recruitment is the department responsible for bringing in the donors and selling the idea of being a donor which is something an employee should be proud of.   But this Director brings a very dark could over UBS Arizona's department and everyone has chosen to put their head in the sand and look away.  30% of that team has either left or moved on to other departments.  I feel for the  employees who have been left behind and work in such a low morale and hostile environment

United Blood Services employs many at locations in 18 states, providing services to patients in more than 500 hospitals. I'm not privy to the pay scale, but I know that the employees receive excellent benefits. As a doner, I've always had good experiences with the staff.

I don't consider the price of gas to be a fair comparison to the price of blood. Oil/Gas is pumped in billions of gallos/day all over world, and the price per gallon can be dependent on many factors (not the least of which is whatever OPEC wants to charge)

Blood is available only through a narrow path of people who wish to give of their time and life giving blood. The employees of United Blood Services, however many they may be, have saleries and the same bills to pay as you and me. Perhaps the salaries of the employees of United Blood Services, and the limited availability of the blood supply has more to do with the price of their blood than the 'Fat Cat' corporate executives you speak of. 

First. The Government has its socialized system of collecting blood through the Red Cross (and personal donation).

Second. The blood donations have to move through a rigorous testing process that takes up to a week. Moreover, UBS guidelines state that donations can only be kept for a total of 42 consecutive days before its deemed unusable.

Now mind you, there are very altruistic people in the world who would gladly do this work for free, but most need to make a living. This is not a fault; it's a fact of life. Someone has to be paid to process the initial draw, test the sample, and ready the blood for transport to the next pending order.

You may not appreciate the fact that other people beside yourself need to make a living; but its saving lives. With out services like UBS and the Red Cross people who die in hospitals everyday.

Blood donors are a rare and precious resource. The blood they provide is even more so.

And yes it costs money to get the job done. Your argument linking blood to the cost of gasoline is not only insulting, but also narrow minded, and repugnant.

I work at UBS, and this report is absurd. An organization that is non profit still has expenses - high expenses. Do you think the employees are volunteers who donate 8 hours of their time each day, all year? No, they have salaries. The machines that are used to draw and process blood cost upwards of $40,000.00 a piece and each center has several units, not to mention the amount of mobile machines that are out there each day drawing blood at numerous blood drives. The busses cost six figures and each bag that holds blood donated costs $40.00. We go through hundreds a month. So take all of these costs times x amount of employees and x amount of blood centers.

Yes, plasma is shipped to the UK. They cannot use plasma donated in the UK because of mad cow disease - plasma is the carrier. We in the USA have an abundance and because it can be stored and frozen for so long, it is shipped there because of the lack of resources. Yes, they pay for it, but the cost to get one pint of blood or plasma is huge!

Everyone just expects blood to be there if they need it, but without generous donors and UBS, many lives would be lost. I think that's the ultimate cost.

There is no expose' story here - just a jilted employee who proved they probably got fired for good reason based on the lack of maturity shown in the original post.

Its really intersting that employees worry about meeting their quota in blood donations. On Saturday July 26th, 2008 I entered a blood bus for United Blood Services. I have always given to the American Red Cross in the past and this was the first time I strayed, my mistake. I am AB- so I have been told, so blood banks usually jump at the opportunity to draw from me. On Saturday they sampled my blood and found nothing wrong. Now here is the catch prior to me going into the small work station a Wal-Mart employee who I knew left angry from the station. I had no idea why. Incidently for what it is worth this United Blood Services was out of Hot Springs, AR. My husband is a contractor out in Mena, AR so that is how I came in contact with them. The chances of a blood preasure and heart rate reading exactely the same within minutes after its taken from each other would make one wonder if the machine wasn't caught in a loop. Not to mention the employee who was trying to help me appeared not to know how to take blood preasure and heart rate readings manually or even use a different machine. Most of the questions that I am used to being asked were not asked prior to my blood being tested. I was asked about my accedemic level of acheivement. I only stated that I graduated from High School. Actually I also graduated from college and I am a retired health inspector, but that and my accedemic level of acheivement is none of their business. It also was none of their business of whether or not my parents traveled out of the US, I could understand if the question was concerning only me. For starters I hadn't lived with them since I was 17. I noted while I was on the bus when an employee opened a holding drawer for drawn blood it showed no signs of it being refridgerated and there was at least 30-50 bags of blood inside it. I checked in at 2:22 that day, in the work station room when I got ready to throw out my gauze after being tested the trash can was over flowing with used blood stained gauze pads from preivious tested people, rubber gloves and some puncture needles. It was so full I had a hard time throwing away my gauze pad, because I trying not to touch someone elses. I saw no Bio-Hazard Disposal Units on the bus or in the 2 workstations that I observed. They would not allow me to give blood because their machine claimed I had an unbelievable heart rate of 106 on all (2) times it was tested, the blood preasure readings were identical to the first reading. I have been known to have a high heart rate but nothing like that. So to prove them wrong I went into the Wal-Mart and took my blood preasure United Blood Services showed 136/76 with 106 heart rate all times they took it from that machine. Wal-Mart blood preasure machine showed 121/69 with 82. This would tell me that their machine probably was not calibrated and got stuck in a loop. After I took my blood preasure I ran into the Wal-Mart employee who was in the work station before I went in and he indicated that his readings were unbelievable and off the record. My husband tried to tell them about my normal readings but they were in my opinion rude to him because he had the nerve to question their blood preasure machine and they simply told him that they were closed and if I wanted to donate to wait 24 hours. At this point and in my opinion based on sanitation or lack of and the question of proper calibration of the blood preasure machine, I would not give them a drop. But what I did do is I sent United Blood Services a complaint/report letter via email to their main office in Fort Smith, AR which an auto reply confirmed receiving the email and they still have not responded. This same letter was sent to the main Health Department in Little Rock, AR. I'll take sanitation over giving blood any day. When we left the blood bus a worker with United Blood Services was worried about not meeting their quota they told my husband this. Kind of rings a bell.

Intersesting stroy!! You are correct about the price of Blood and how the companys work you. If you don't produce for them you are History. In fact if you are not in the right click you are History. You failed to inform the public about the new Trima Platelet machines used in Indiana. This machine can draw a Triple product off of one donor if the donors platelet count is high enough. Take that times $600 a product. Yes, It going somewhere.