National blood requirement acutely low – Blood Centre
The Accra Area Blood Centre has said the national blood requirement has reached an extremely low level and it is affecting the work of health personnel as they seek to address emergency cases.
The Centre said the nation requires 250,000 units of blood without any replacement but currently “we don’t even have one third of it.”
Mr Samual Nunoo, Deputy Chief Blood Donor Recruiter of Accra Area Blood Centre, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview on Saturday.
The Centre, in collaboration with UT Holdings, Korle-bu Teaching and 37 Military hospitals and Happy FM organised voluntary blood donation to commemorate the African Union 50th Anniversary.
Mr Nunoo said “Korle-bu Teaching Hospital alone uses 80 to 100 units of blood a day” but the replacement level was ineffective.
“Many people are just looking for money and others refuse to do voluntary donation because of fear, apathy, ignorance and cultural beliefs,” he said.
Blood had short life span, it could be stored for a maxim of 35 days, so it was imperative to store enough to contain the different blood groups, he said.
Mr Nunoo said the national blood shortfall needed a serious attention as it was significantly contributing to the loss of preventable lives, including those of pregnant women and accident victims.
He explained that a healthy body required five to six bottles of blood to function properly, but most people have seven to eight, adding “such people can conveniently donate once in four months.”
Mr Nunoo appealed to the media to help spread the information and help educate the public to remove the myths, misconceptions and fear relating to blood donation.
Lieutenant Yaw Kissiedu, Biomedical Scientists at the 37 Military Hospital Blood Bank, said the hospital was one of the facilities earmarked to serve in the wake of strikes and enough systems were in place to ensure adequate blood supply.
He said the 37 Military Hospital has a 400-bed capacity that required 200 units of blood but its blood bank was stocking about 400 units.
Lieutenant Kissiedu said voluntary blood donation is encouraged because it was convenient to get better connected to ones medical history and to get the best of blood.
He said persons between the ages of 17 and 60 and had passed a medical test were qualified to donate blood.
The different blood groups needed are A-positive and negative, B-positive and negative, 0-positive and negative and AB-positive and negative.
Source: GNA