Blood donation mission
PARKTOWN – Members of the public and the staff showed their support for the Netcare Milpark's Hospital's blood drive challenge.
Netcare Milpark Hospital hosted a blood drive that was open to all members of the public. The hospital staff also participated in the drive in an effort to reach their goal of collecting 200 pints of blood.
Milpark’s trauma ICU nurse, Carol Collins said the blood drive has taken place at the hospital three times and, so far, there has always been a good turnout from the public and members of staff. The blood drive took place on 23 November.
“We need more blood for the festive season due to there being more casualties during this period. It is very frustrating when there is no blood during an emergency and we have to sometimes wait for hours to get blood to a patient. We encourage people who have never donated blood to consider doing so because they might might be the ones who need the blood one day,” said Collins.
She added that donating blood is a process you get used to the more you do it. There were a number of hospital staff members who went to show their support and donate blood.
Nurse, Nokuthula Sithol, said that this is her first time donating blood and wanted to do something to help someone else who is in need of blood. “I was mainly concerned if I had enough blood to fill the blood bag and, to my surprise, I had more than enough. I plan on donating blood in the future.”
Milpark’s manager, Shawn Albert said blood is needed the most in the trauma unit where lives need to be saved. Every year the aim is to increase the number of donors due to there being a huge shortage nationally.
The hospital may have not reached their goal of collecting 200 pints of blood but managed to collect 170 and can use 140 pints which will be administered to patients.
