The national demand for safe blood for patients is more than 250,000 units annually, but the national collection is far less than 50 per cent.

Mr Stephen Danso, a Blood Donor Recruitment Officer of the Accra Area National Blood Transfusion Service, said this in an interview with newsmen at a blood donation exercise by members of the Adabraka Official Town District Presbyterian Church of Ghana.

The donation forms part of activities marking the 5th anniversary of the Young Adults’ Fellowship (YAF) of the Church, at the its premises in Accra.

It was on the theme: “The Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Young Adults (1 Cor. 12: 4-11).”

Mr Danso said if one per cent of the nation’s population could donate one pint of blood, the acute shortages in the hospitals would cease and it would go a long way in preventing needless maternal mortality and other deaths.

Mr Danso explained that the life-span of blood donated is only 35 days and that this leads to acute shortages at the blood banks adding that people should not think that the blood they donated would be there for them to use when the needs arose.

He said one can donate blood four times in a year, and that the fear that one may lose weight or would contract diseases after donating was not true.

Mr Danso called on corporate and religious bodies to make their members available to donate blood, particularly the youth who are healthier today, to save lives whilst urging individuals who could not do so, to support such activities.