A senior technical officer at the Tamale West Hospital, Mr. Noah Komla Tiase has called on the government and philanthropists to help the blood bank of the facility with modern equipment.
The lack of modern equipment, he said, is hampering their work at the blood bank. “We don’t have the requisite equipment to function as a blood bank,” Mr Noah stressed.
He explained that a unit of blood can save three (3) lives. According to him, a blood unit could be separated into three different components at a time which needs modern equipment.
The modern equipment is essential because donated blood becomes waste after 35 days, if not put into use, he added. Mr Noah made the call when the League of Youth Associations donated blood to the facility, after they had carried out a clean-up exercise on Saturday.
The League of youth associations is an amalgamation of non-political youth groups within the Tamale metropolis and the Sagnarigu district, with a common aim of addressing pertinent issues in a diplomatic manner for the betterment of their communities.
Mr Noah commended the league of youth associations for their generosity and called on residents in and around Tamale to inculcate the habit of regular voluntary donation. Voluntary blood donation, Mr. Tiase observed, is the only way to shore up the blood stock at the facility.
He revealed that the League’s donation was the third of its kind in 2017, after some previous two, organized by it for all hospitals at TTH in February and another for senior high school students.
On accusations of blood banks selling blood to in-patients, Mr. Tiase dismissed them, explaining that hospitals usually charge clients for blood infusions when they visit.
“It is people’s misconceptions which must be discarded,” the senior technical officer pleaded.
Mr. Tiase explained further that the hospital is running a replacement system due to irregular voluntary donations, so if a client walks into the facility with no one readily available to replace blood, the hospital asks for a deposit of 60.00 Ghana cedis as a guarantee, which the facility uses to buy incentives for other voluntary donors but if a replacement is made, the hospital refunds the said amount.
The President of the League of Youth Associations, Mr Abu Inusah told Zaa News that the blood donation exercise formed part of their series of activities to end the year 2017 and the Tamale West Hospital’s donation was the second exercise after one at the Tamale Teaching Hospital some two months ago.
“We were told the facility was running out of blood and blood is not in the market to buy; so we therefore thought there was the need for us to do the voluntary donation,” Mr Abu said. He pleaded with the people of Tamale to donate blood to save lives.
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