WBDD: Blood Donors Back Bones Of Health Care Sector – Aworanti
By Admin
As the world marks the year 2023 blood donor day, the Acting Zonal Director of the National Blood Service Commission (NBSC), Dr. Oladapo Aworanti has appreciated the voluntary blood donors who have been supporting the blood transfusion service of the country through their blood donations.
Speaking at the South West Zonal Center of the National Service Commission, Ibadan, on Wednesday during the activities marking the 2023 World Blood Donor Day, Dr. Aworanti in his address stressed that celebration is meant to appreciate the voluntary non remunerated blood donors.
Naijanewshub.com.ng reports that Aworanti in his words said, “World Blood Donor Day is a yearly event, this is the 20th in the series, this year’s theme is Give Blood, Give Plasma, Share Live, Share Often.”
“This theme showed that we need to share blood often and we should not make it a yearly activity. This activities is meant to appreciate our voluntary non remunerated blood donors who out of all recent challenges have been able to support the transfusion service of Nigeria, these people formed the backbone of health care sector in Nigeria and they continue to give the ailing citizens another chance to live, they are indeed the champions.”
“This event is also created to convince other Nigerians to join the pool of voluntary blood donors because the more the merrier. Nigeria as a country has not been able to meet her transfusion need as the number of voluntary non remunerated blood donors is still less than 5% of the total number of donors.”
“Most of these voluntary non remunerated blood donors are also not regular with their donation, most donate once in one or two years, it is quite difficult to support the transfusion service of our country when you are not a regular donor, so we are using this opportunity to speak to our known donors to be regular and those not in the pool of the voluntary blood donors to please seize this opportunity to donate blood, it is part of sharing lives and sharing often.”
“This programme is also created to raise awareness on the need for safe blood and blood products in the world, the foundation for safe blood and blood products rests on effective and efficient donors selection. This is the moment to discontinue paid donation and other activities that could render blood products unsafe in our hospitals.” Aworanti said.
Some other the stakeholders at the event are the representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Rotary Club, religion organizations among others.
In her contributions, Rotarian Kemi Akinpelu, rpresenting the Rotary Club of Iyaganku Ibadan, said “today marks the world donor day and this is currently going on throughout the country, the essence of this event tells us that as we all go to bank for monetary transaction, just exactly is the need for anyone who needs medical attention need to go to hospital and who is in need of blood need to go to somewhere to get the blood, so here in the national blood transfusion service commission we have the federal blood bank, so we need to sensitized people on the need for them to donate blood, because as at today blood cannot be chemically generated, somebody has to give, the blood is in our veins and for another person who’s in dire need of it, someone has to come here and donate for such person and such person have to come here for the process.”
“The main thing is that we don’t have to limit it to evey June 14 before we can start to donate blood, as every female can donate blood at the interval of every four months making three times in a year, while the every make can donate every three months in a year.” Kemi said.