Blood Drive Officials Hit Red Cross as Inefficient

Officials of the local Phillips Brooks House blood drive have privately condemned the Red Cross for "singular lack of cooperation and efficiency," the CRIMSON learned yesterday. Blood drive leaders are known to believe that from 100 to 150 more plats of blood could have been collected had the Red Cross done a competent job.

Main cause of friction between the drive and the Red Cross was the latter's refusal to believe that the P.B.H. campaign would not more than 1,000 pints during its three days last week. Just before the opening of the drive P.B.H. officials had to go to the regional blood director and pleaded for enough nurses and equipment to blood 1,450 people.

After the first day of the drive it became evident that even 1,450 was too small an estimate. Red Cross directors came close to asking P.B.H. to end all solicitation during the drive. As it was, P.B.H. let up on its canvassing of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Law School, and did not solicit the faculty at all.

Bar Aid from Army

An attempt by P.B.H. to get additional nurses from the Army for the actual blood-letting was blocked by the Red Cross, which said that Army nurses could do only blood pressure and paper work. The Army replied that it would send only proper technicians for such work, and the Red Cross said such technicians would not be good enough for its purposes.

The dispute ended up with the Red Cross finally going out and getting more nurses on its own.

More trouble came from the rivalry between various Red Cross chapters to see which would get the most donations. Thus Cambridge officials were reluctant to assign overflow donors to Boston hospitals.

The Red Cross estimated originally that a single bed could take care of four people per hour, but in practice people spent as much as two hours for the whole process