The District Health Director of health services in the Nadowli/Kaleo District Madam, Phoebe Balagumyetime, has urged the public to donate blood to the Nadowli government hospital to save lives.
The need for blood in health facilities for transfusion is one major issue most patients of various ailments would have to grapple with on daily basis.
The situation in the Upper West Region is not different from what happens at the national level when it comes to blood shortage.
The Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin on his 64th birthday, organised a blood donation exercise to help stock the blood bank of the Nadowli/Kaleo District hospital.
The exercise forms part of efforts by the former Nadowli/Kaleo Constitiency lawmaker to contribute towards the supply of blood at the hospital.
Madam Phoebe Balagumyetime, the Nadowli-Kaleo district director of health services underscored the need for the hospital to have a fully stocked blood bank saying “a hospital without a stocked blood bank is not hospital at all.”
According to her, the hospital has been reeling on its knees and the only way to get blood was to task patients who need blood transfusion to bring their relatives to donate to the blood bank.
“The blood situation in the hospital is nothing to write home about why do I say this? On a daily basis you find patients more importantly children and women in labor requiring blood and there are times we can’t find blood.”
“On a monthly basis we require about eighty (80) units of blood and we are always unable to meet the target.”
Madam Phoebe Balagumyetime said blood is a necessary component of the hospital because several category of patients including children, pregnant women and women in labor, accident victims and snakebite patients all require blood to survive.
She seized the opportunity to thank the speaker of parliament for organizing a blood donation exercise and also called on all residents of the Nadowli -Kaleo district to cultivate the habit of donating blood.
