SANBS urges people to donate blood and save lives
People are urged to donate blood especially during winter when blood supplies were low and donations decreased.
Few people realise to what extent blood can actually save lives and how much blood is needed daily, especially during winter.
The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) hosted a media tour on Thursday, at its Roodepoort office where media practitioners were educated about the efforts to ensure that the blood bank had sufficient supplies to save lives.
The tour also included some educators and health activists from Pretoria, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
“During winter people are reluctant to donate as it is cold and they don’t want to go out, or the other factor would be illness,” said head of inventory Clive Mkhwanazi.
Mkhwazani said because a lot of people fell sick in winter, it was hard for them to get to donation stations.
He emphasised that it was of utmost importance that people donated blood in winter because the demand was too high.
SANBS said there had been a decrease in donors in recent years.
The blood service had over 400 000 donors on its database which indicated that over 49 million people were not donating blood.
The organisation ran regular educational campaigns to inform people about the importance of donating blood and recruited young donors.
“SANBS is also getting younger as we are seeing the proportion of donations from the youth increase,” a statement said.
The current campaign was about donor education and community support that moved beyond the need for blood as a medical response to an act of love and care.
“Blood really connects people and our hope is that our efforts will see an even wider range of donors walk into our donor centres to start their journey to sharing the gift of life,” said SANBS communications manager Vanessa Raju.
Mkhwanazi explained the donation process, how donors were tested, prepared and how the blood reached the receiver.
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Khensani Manganyi an educator from Giyani said she now appreciated the need to donate. In the past she had little knowledge about donating blood.
She had not been aware that there was such a vigorous system to ensure that blood was indeed clean before it reached the patient.
Mkhwanazi said type O blood regularly saved lives of newborns but because it was the scarcest type, it was difficult to keep it sufficiently stocked.
“Babies born with blood disorders may also require immediate blood transfusions in order to save their lives. In some cases difficulties may occur in determining the blood groups of these infants. Type O blood is therefore important in supplying this ongoing need,” according to SANBS.
14 June is World Blood Donor day and the theme is Blood connects us all.
Also read:
Help avoid a blood shortage this Easter
SANBS needs more blood donors during festive season
Alarming low blood stock level
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