CAN WE GIVE ONEGATIVE BLOOD TO A NEGATIVE PATIENT?
You can give O negative packed cells to anyone, any blood type. It is the universal donor. It is done everyday throughout the country in trauma centers. Actually some use O positive blood on everybody due to the shortage of O negative blood and so it depends on what part of the country you are in and on how short they are with O negative blood. This is usually done when they don’t know the blood type of the recipient as it is an emergency and they don’t have time to type the blood yet. Once they have a blood type available then A negative blood is given if the patient is indeed A negative. If you know the blood type then there is no reason to give O negative as it is a rare blood type and more rare than A negative.
