National Blood Bank 'Overflows' Again.... @Despite/Special Grp Event; 1000's Turned Away
Thank you for donating to save a life...God richly bless you!
The national demand for blood for patients is estimated to exceed 250000 units annually but the national collection is far less than 50 percent.
For this reason, Chief Executives of the Despite and Special Group of Companies, Dr. Osei Kwame and Dr. Ernest Ofori Sarpong together with their management organized their annual blood donation exercise to help fill and restock the national blood bank with adequate blood for patients.
It was a spectacle to behold when a mammoth number of donors numbering about 7,000 (official figures) from all walks of life, lined up to equip the country's blood bank on Saturday, July 1.
The event held at the Ghana Police Training School in Accra was under the theme "Donate Blood and Save Lives".
Donors started trooping into the offices of Peace FM at around 9pm Friday evening from outside Accra and at the venue as early as 2 am and by 10 am; a large multitude had crowded the premises of the Ghana Police Training School to help save lives.
Dr. Osei Kwame Despite and Dr. Ernest Ofori Sarpong also came over to witness the massive turn-out as scores of Ghanaians queued patiently waiting to donate their blood.
This year's exercise saw thousands donating blood and undergoing breast cancer screening, prostate examination, blood pressure test among others.
The National Blood Bank recorded about 700 pints of blood at last year's exercise (held at the premises of PeaceFM, ShipHouse at Abeka Junction), and the expectation was that, with adequate preparation and the change of venue to a much larger location, more pints of blood would be collected by the team.
It was perhaps the reason for the beefing up of the health team, with doctors, nurses, lab assistants and other medical personnel drawn from the Police Hospital, Korle-bu, Ridge, Tema General Hospital and Koforidua General Hospital were called upon to partner the National Blood Bank for the exercise.
But at the end of the day, they were able to collect a total of 1637 pints of blood - a massive improvement on last year's exercise though - but thousands of donors were sadly turned away due to inadequate equipment to store the blood.
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