Media thanked by SANBS

THE importance of the media in communicating the plight of the South African National Blood Services (SANBS) to the public was highlighted at the annual SANBS Media Breakfast last week.

Speaking at the event, Khulekani Zuma, donor relations practitioner at SANBS acknowledged the media and the impact it has on reaching the community in times of crisis.

Zone donor manager, Phelelani Mkhize, said the media played a key role in ensuring SANBS does its job well, and without the media as partners, SANBS would not be able to meet its mandate of ensuring there is enough blood and blood products in all private and public hospitals.

Guest speaker, Shantha Nair, president of the KwaDakuza Sai Centre, mentioned the impact the media had when it came to encouraging people to attend blood drives.

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“In March 2016 we hosted our first clinic and put a small insert in the local newspaper, and a number of blood donors attended, with 105 bled on the day. These were excellent numbers, but I realised so much more could be done, and I put a bigger piece in the paper regarding our blood drive in June. At this clinic, 139 were bled, an extra 45 donors attended as a result of publicity through the press,” she said.

At the breakfast, Janet Legemaate gave a heart wrenching talk about her son Matthew’s journey on the organ donor list, and as a recent recipient.

Matthew, (19), was born with a three chamber heart and no linkage between his heart and lungs and Janet was told he shouldn’t have lived his first 36 hours.

As a new born, he underwent surgery where he was given five units of blood, without which he wouldn’t have survived. He was put on permanent oxygen at the age of 13, and after he and Janet researched organ transplants in South Africa, they realised people needed a wake up call about becoming donors.

“Most people don’t get a second chance, and this triggered the need for us to promote organ and tissue donation. We set up a website called Hero777 to encourage people to become part of drives,” she said.

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Five open heart surgeries later, and after being on the Organ Donor list, Matthew finally underwent a heart and bilateral lung transplant recently. He is the seventh person in South Africa to have this operation and the second this year in the world.

“We didn’t think we would get a transplant in KZN as there are so few as there are so few donor referrals in KZN. During the operation Matthew received nine units of blood, platelets and frozen plasma and another five units the next day. There wasn’t enough blood supply in KZN and blood had to come from Gauteng, which emphasised the blood crisis in the province. We encourage people to donate blood as well as to register to be organ and tissue donors,” said Janet.

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