Some of the donors giving blood during the exercise
The Medical Superintendent of Bogoso Hospital in the Western Region, Dr. Joseph Darko has called for more persons to voluntarily donate blood to help replenish and support the blood bank at the health facilities in Tarkwa which have been in dire need of pints of blood for patients.
He said Tarkwa and its environs need about 2,400 pints of blood every year adding, “But the demand has always been higher than supply and the burden cannot be on patients’ relatives alone”.
The Medical Superintendent revealed this when Gold Fields Ghana Foundation (GFGF) organized a blood donation exercise to collect about 1000 pints of blood for the Tarkwa Hospital.
The exercise dubbed, “A thousand gifts of life” was held at Tarkwa Senior High and Fiaseman Senior High Schools.
The blood donation exercise which was organized in collaboration with Firm Health Ghana Foundation at a cost of GH¢70,000.00, had about 660 donors.
Dr. Joseph Darko, explained that blood was key to critical health care and emergencies, saying, “we want to ensure that every health facility had enough stock at the blood bank.”
He disclosed that normally about 120 pints of blood are realized whenever there was blood donation exercise in the area adding, “This is not enough for emergencies. We need to save lives”.
He continued “We see people coming everyday and dying because we do not have blood at the bank and it is very traumatic. A pregnant woman was referred from a community health center for delivery at a Tarkwa health facility, but died. Her haemoglobin was 0.5 percent”.
Dr. Darko added that most of the times health facilities in Tarkwa relied on those in Accra or Takoradi for blood supplies, crossing bad road and spending long hours.
He indicated that one critical part of the exercise was to generate data on the blood collected so that health professionals were assured of where to get the blood group they need and reduce the burden of relatives, who were sometimes at the mercy of ‘goro’ boys at the facilities.
Dr. Darko argued that, the Appiatse and Shama explosions should serve as reminder that care managers were ready at all times to handle emergencies.
He stressed “We do not have to wait and that is why we are collaborating with GFGF for this initiative aimed at collecting 1000 pints of blood for the health facilities here”.
Executive Secretary of GFGF, Abdel- Razak Yakubu, was grateful to the donors and described their enthusiasm as very encouraging and believed that, the vision of the Foundation to improve critical health care and emergencies had been met.
“We hope to organize this event every quarter. We are really happy that together, we have made it. We have supported a worthy course,” he disclosed.
The Operations Director, Firm Health Ghana, Dr. Sylvester Akpah, said “We will continue with awareness creation for people to donate blood voluntarily, because we need to stock our blood banks. In all, we had about 660 donors and I believe that our partnership with Gold Fields will be sustained.”
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi