FBO should encourage their members to donate blood

The National Blood Service has appealed to Faith Based Organizations (FBO) to encourage their members through their online services to donate blood to replenish the dwindling national stock.

Mr Stephen Danso, Principal Blood Donor Coordinator at the National Blood Service who made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the Service could set up at the premises of their places of worship for members to donate

Mr Danso said the blood donation exercise would be done with the strict adherence to the COVID-19 protocols which include social distancing, wearing of masks, hand washing and use of alcohol based sanitizers.

He indicated that such an arrangement would help restock the blood bank which had been hit hard in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana explaining that due to the ban on social gatherings religious organizations and educational institutions that formed about 80 per cent of the donors were no longer organizing blood donation exercises.

He said even though the demand for blood for patients needing transfusion was high, the challenge was that the supply or donation of blood had become very low.

The Coordinator said to restock, the National Blood Service had identified some open public spaces including the forecourt of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA), Kasoa and Achimota in its Southern Area where they positioned their movable blood donation trailer to enable people to voluntarily donate.

In Tema, he noted, his outfit together with Maame Kwaaba Stevens, the brand ambassador for the Service got the blessings of Mr Felix Mensah Nii Anang-La, Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive to position the blood trailer at the Assembly premises every Tuesdays and Thursdays to enable residents of Tema, Ashaiman and their environs to volunteer to donate, adding that their known donors in the area were also contacted and scheduled to donate.

Mr Danso encouraged the public to donate blood devoid of the fear of contracting COVID-19 in the process as the Service was strictly following the protocols in the discharge of its responsibility.

He disclosed that on average his outfit collected between 10 and 50 pints of blood in Tema on the days they position their mobile service at the TMA forecourt.

Reminding the public on the factors to consider before donating blood, he stated that a donor must be aged between 17 and 60, have a weight of 50 kg and above adding that it was safe to give blood once every four months.

The blood donated, he stated was given to patients whose conditions could only be managed by blood and blood products as part of their treatment.

Some of such conditions included excessive bleeding during childbirth, children with marked destruction of blood cells from severe malaria, victims of road traffic accidents bleeding excessively from their wounds, those going for major surgeries and cancer patients.