‘Regular blood donation by 1% of population will reduce shortage’

It has emerged that if just one per cent of the country’s population voluntarily donate blood every three months, it will reduce the periodic shortage of blood at the National Blood Service.

The Programmes Coordinator of the National Blood Service, Mr Mark Kofi Tetteh, who made this known at a blood donation exercise in Accra last Friday, said voluntary blood donation must be done regularly to make the service fully operational in order to help save lives.

Consequently, he said the service planned to strengthen collaboration with stakeholders as part of measures to expedite voluntary blood donation across the country.

Ecobank donation

Mr Tetteh was speaking at a blood donation exercise organised by Ecobank Ghana in partnership with Nestle Ghana Limited, Ernest Chemist and the National Blood Service to mark World Donor Day.

The focus of this year’s campaign was blood donation and universal access to safe blood transfusion as a component of achieving universal health coverage.

The bank is a donor institution that undertakes annual blood donation exercises to support efforts to re-stock the national blood bank.

The slogan for this year’s campaign is “Safe Blood for All.”

To demonstrate the bank’s commitment, its Managing Director, Mr Dan Sackey, said staff members of the bank and its affiliate institutions, namely eProcess, Ecobank Development Corporation and Pan Africa Savings and Loans, donated blood in four key centres across the country.

“The centres where the exercises are being held simultaneously are Accra, Tema, Kumasi, and Tamale,” he said.

“Customers of the bank were also encouraged to join the exercise at the various centres. Last year, the bank’s efforts resulted in the donation of over 800 units of blood,” he added.

Mr Sackey stated that organisers of the exercise were confident that it would save lives, families and homes.

He encouraged employees and customers of the bank to become regular donors and to continue to make healthy lifestyle choices to remain eligible to donate blood at least once every year.

Participation

The Corporate Communications Manager of Nestle Ghana Limited, Mrs Deborah Kwablah, called on the general public to donate blood to save lives.

She expressed the resolve of her company to help promote preventive health through the encouragement of healthy lifestyles and promotion of health consciousness among the public.

“We need to make sure that people become conscious of the need to donate blood because the thing is that when it is your turn, you will not want to be the one to be told that there is no blood to save your life. So when you are alive and well, that is the time to actually donate blood,” she emphasised.