Donate blood to save lives : Donors implored
The Blood Donor Organiser of the Sunyani Regional Hospital, Mr Emmanuel Mahama Amin, has encouraged eligible Ghanaians to make it their responsibility to donate blood from time to time in order to stock the various blood banks and save the lives of people who urgently need blood infusion.
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He said apart from saving lives, people who donated blood frequently became healthy through the purification of their blood.
Mr Amin, therefore, asked Ghanaians to discard all misconceptions about blood donation, since they could help save the lives of their relatives, friends and other people anytime they donated blood.
He was speaking during a blood donation campaign organised by the Brong Ahafo Regional Secretariat of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), to stock the Blood Bank of the Sunyani Regional Hospital.
Thirty-three units of blood were donated by staff of the NHIA and some students during the exercise.
Blood stock
Mr Amin described the stock at the Blood Bank of the hospital as normal explaining that currently, the bank had about 100 units of blood in stock.
“With the hospital as a referral facility for the region, an average of 10-15 units of blood are consumed every day,” he explained, adding that “we are able to get back the units of blood consumed through the replacement system that has been put in place”.
Mr Amin said through that system, family members or friends were made to donate blood to replace every unit of blood used at the hospital and commended students of second cycle institutions for donating frequently to stock the various blood banks in the country.
Mr Amin said one problem inhibiting blood donation in the country was the demand for packages by people who were prepared to donate blood, and, therefore, called on both government and non-governmental institutions to sponsor blood donation programmes through the provision of T-shirts, non-alcoholic beverages, among other items, to encourage the people to donate frequently.
Preventive measure
A Senior Monitoring Officer of the NHIA, Mr Alfred Agamah, told the Daily Graphic that the exercise was the second being organised by the NHIA to collect blood from its staff for the Sunyani Regional Hospital, explaining that last year, 63 pints of blood were collected from staff of the NHIA during a similar exercise.
He said the exercise would be held from time to time, and added, “We want to team up with the hospital as part of our corporate social responsibility to prevent the erratic supply of blood units at the hospital”.
Some of the first-time donors expressed their happiness for being given the chance to donate blood to save lives.
Ms Joycelyn Addison Buabeng told the Daily Graphic, “I was a bit scared at first but I no more fear donating after going through the exercise.
It is a nice experience and I encourage other people to make it a point to donate blood to save the lives of anaemic people and accident victims.”
