"Change negative perception about blood donation"
A Medical Laboratory Scientist at the St. Elizabeth Hospital in the Asutifi South District of the Ahafo Region, Mr Felix Gadzeto Fiagbe has appealed to Ghanaians to change their negative perceptions about blood donation.
He said until that was done, blood banks across the country would not get the required stock to serve clients when the need arose.
Advertisement
He was speaking at a blood donation exercise organised at Hwidiem to support the St. Elizabeth Hospital.
It was jointly organised by the Ghana Red Cross Society, the Ghana Health Service and the National Disaster Management Organisation and sponsored by the Newmont Ahafo Mine.
A total of 120 pints of blood were collected to support the hospital to enable it deal with emergencies.
The donors included the GRCS volunteers, NADMO volunteers, National Service personnel, drivers, pragya operators and students.
Mr Fiagbe said the St. Elizabeth Hospital, which served clients in the Ahafo, Western North and parts of the Ashanti Region was a strategic facility which needed to have the required stock of blood at all times.
"But this is not so and we sometimes have to depend on commercial blood donors to serve out clients".
Mr Fiagbe therefore called for education to enable eligible Ghanaians to disabuse their minds of myths and untruths surrounding blood donation and rather consider it as their duty to save lives.
He thanked the organisers of the exercise for their foresight and expressed the hope that more people would respond to the call to donate blood in subsequent exercises.
Commendation
For his part, the Ahafo Regional Blood Donation Organiser of the GRCS, Mr Baba Niendow said the exercise was planned to ensure that adequate blood was collected for the St. Elizabeth Hospital.
He added that the organisation of blood donation exercises would also be done in Goaso, Bechem and Duayaw-Nkwanta to collect blood for the Goaso Government Hospital, the Bechem Government Hospital and the St. John of God Hospital respectively.
Mr Niendow thanked Newmont Ahafo Mine for sponsoring the exercise to make sure that the donors were given gifts in appreciation of their gesture.
He also thanked the donors for responding to the appeal for blood donation and urged them to educate their friends and family members to emulate such a gesture.
Some of the donors who spoke to the Daily Graphic said they felt proud for donating their blood to save lives.