Mr Kofi Owusu, the Bono Regional Manager of MTN Ghana on Friday said the fulfilling way to celebrate the annual Valentine’s Day is to voluntarily donate blood to save the precious lives of pregnant women, in particular.
He said it was worrying and unfortunate that some pregnant women and mothers die during labour, partly due to excessive bleeding saying with enough blood pints at the various public health facilities, those precious lives could be saved.
Hence the need for people to capitalise on the Valentine’s Day celebration to demonstrate love, care and compassion by donating their blood to support pregnant women and mothers and save lives as well.
Mr Owusu gave the advice in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani on the side of a blood donation exercises to mark this year’s celebration.
he MTN Ghana Foundation in collaboration with the Sunyani Teaching Hospital organised the blood donation exercises, which enabled the students of the Sunyani Senior High and Twene Amanfo Senior High and Technical Schools to donate blood to support this course.
It was in line with the Foundation’s annual ‘Save a Life blood donation’ exercise held on February 14, every year to support the National Blood Service and restock Regional Blood Banks.
Mr Owusu said the history behind Valentine’s Day celebration, was to show love and care and not to promote sexual activities or unhealthy lifestyles, explaining that data by the World Health Organisation (WHO) had shown that millions of lives were saved each year through blood transfusions.
However, many hospitals and blood banks especially in Ghana still struggled with shortages of blood, with the transfusion figure falling short of the WHO recommendation of a minimum of 10 units per 1,000 populations, which was essential to meet basic transfusion requirements.
In a highlight, Mr Owusu explained that the ‘Save a Life project’ was instituted by MTN Ghana Foundation in 2011, in response to call by the National Blood Services to help restock the blood bank.
Besides helping restock the National blood bank and other regional blood banks, Mr Owusu explained that the project sought to encourage voluntary blood donation to stock blood banks across the country, saying “we have collected over 29,000 units of blood over the years”.
Mr Enoch Gyau, a Biomedical Scientist and the Unit Head of the Blood Bank at the Sunyani Teaching Hospital, told the GNA that with the upgrade of the hospital, the facility needed more blood in stock to attend to emergencies.
Source: GNA
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