By Godfred A. Polkuu
Bolgatanga, Oct. 25, GNA – The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) in the Upper East Region has called on the public to regularly donate blood to hospitals across the country to save lives.
The Regional Head of the Authority, Mr Sebastian Mawuli Hotor, who made the call, said life was full of uncertainties and people sometimes found themselves in situations where they needed real life heroes and heroines to save them from death.
He said the 2021 World Health Organisation’s report on blood donation indicated that only 62 countries around the world administered blood services from voluntary unpaid blood donation.
He said the rest of the countries, including Ghana, relied on family members of patients or donors who, sometimes donated for a fee, owing to the shortage of blood in health facilities.
At a blood donation exercise organised by the FDA, Mr Hotor said: “It is in view of the dire situation that the FDA has taken it upon itself to engage in this corporate social responsibility as part of its Silver Jubilee celebration.”
“It is also to promote its strategic direction of building public confidence through its core values.”
He noted that blood donation helped in the management bleeding associated with pregnancy and child-birth, children with severe anaemia due to malaria and malnutrition, blood and bone marrow disorders, inherited disorders of haemoglobin, victims of emergencies, trauma and accidents.
On the other hand, it also afforded the donor the opportunity to undergo free medical screening.
“It therefore becomes a two-edged sword, which benefits both the donor and the patient. A donor who provides proof of his or donation of blood is not required to donate as a replacement to save a relative,” he said.
Madam Ajaratu Issah, the Head of Blood Mobilisation at the Regional Hospital in Bolgatanga, said the FDA had organised blood donation exercises, over the years, to stock the blood bank of the Hospital and commended it for the initiative.
She said the blood bank was empty and that the hospital usually recorded high malaria and anaemia cases, coupled with high deliveries, in October, which often consumed blood and its products.
She, therefore, appealed to other organisations to emulate the initiative of the FDA to restock the bank for effective health care delivery.
The FDA also organised a team from the Hospital to screen and school members of the public on breast cancer.
GNA