The Brand Ambassador for the National Blood Service Ghana, Maame Kwaaba Stephens, organized a blood donation awareness walk to emphasize the need for people to continue donating blood, in commemoration of her birthday.
The highly patronized walk, which was supported by the Kaysens Group and the National Blood Service, Ghana was held on Saturday, the 3rd of March, and started from Ayi Mensah Police Station in Accra, to Peduase in Aburi, amidst some fun activities.
Dubbed “The March March Campaign,” the occasion which was targeted at both current and potential donors, also seeks to encourage people to see blood donation in a positive light.
Sharing some insights on the activities, Ms. Stephens explained that, T-shirts were made in the 8 different blood types with different messages on them which were communicated both in the English language and some local languages.
Some of the messages included – “Give blood to mothers”, “Those who give life; Give Blood”, “It is meant to circulate; dear donor, thank you for giving me a second chance at life; 1 unit from you = 3 babies saved” amongst others.
The Ambassador said: “The whole idea is to bring up a couple of issues that currently persist with National Blood Services in Ghana.
Awareness for the need for blood is quite low, and a lot more people would have donated if they knew how bad the situation is.”
As a country, Ghana has never met its blood requirement. In 2016, only 60,000 units of blood was received from voluntary unpaid donors out of the needed 270,000 units.
Available data show that, every day, children and mothers, during childbirth die as a result of acute blood loss, and cancer patients, accident victims, and other patients, need blood transfusion to survive as well. Surgeries, in some cases, have had to be postponed due to lack of blood.
Ms. Stephens noted that the impact of donating blood goes beyond that patient who receives it, but also goes to touch the lives of their families, loved ones, and the society at large.
The CEO of the National Blood Service, Dr. Justina Ansah, who was present at the event, encouraged Ghanaians to donate voluntarily so as to stock the blood bank.
