National Blood Bank stock low
The National Blood Service can currently boast of only 41 pints of blood in its blood bank.
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The Accra Regional Director of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr Lawrence Amartey, who revealed this described the situation as alarming.
Mr Amartey, who was speaking during a blood donation exercise in Accra last Friday, expressed concern that the situation would have dire consequences on healthcare in the country.
The exercise
The annual exercise organised by the NHIA was to create awareness of the need for the public to regularly engage in blood donation.
Dubbed ‘What can you do in times of emergency”, the exercise was also a fulfilment of the corporate social responsibility of the NHIA to save lives.
Donors
About 200 blood donors from the Greater Accra Region, including Osu Klotey, Tema, Ayawaso, Ablekuma and Amasaman, participated in the exercise.
Before the exercise, the participants were taken through free medical screening to ensure that they were fit to donate.
The participants engaged in some side attractions, including socialisation, musicals and sharing of jokes.
Save lives
Mr Amartey said blood was essential in saving lives, and therefore, there was the need to ensure its availability.
He said the outfit had been able to donate more than 500 pints of blood in previous years to the National Blood Transmission Service through the benevolence of people.
“This year, not less than 100 pints of blood will be donated to the service; we need to support it because you never know when you will need blood,” Mr Amartey added.