A member of the Board of Trustees of the Ghana Blood Foundation, Ing. Ken Ashigbey has called on government to fast track the passage of the National Blood Bill into law.
This, he said, would help sanitise the activities of blood donation in the country.
He argued that the passage of the bill would also help Ghana achieve the 100 per cent voluntary blood donation as required by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Ghana, he indicated, has still not been able to achieve the 100 per cent voluntary blood donation status as required by WHO despite the various interventions over the years to achieve the target, even though the need for blood was increasing in all parts of the world, and Ghana was no exception.
He said statistics from WHO indicates that only 62 countries globally get close to a 100 per cent of their national blood supplies from voluntary unpaid blood donations, with 34 others still dependent on family replacement blood donors.
Ghana, he said, was, however, not one of these 62 countries, a situation which needed concerted efforts by all stakeholders to urgently address the loose ends of policy and programmes aimed at investing in the sustenance of blood donations and ensuring the availability of safe blood and blood products in the banks, to save lives.
He said it was unfortunate that raising awareness on the need to donate blood had still not yielded the desired result.
Speaking at a public lecture ahead of World Blood Donor Day, which is commemorated on June 14 every year, Ing. Ashigbey said the foundation is ready to declare a national campaign towards the passage of the bill if government continues with the slow pace.
According to him, the national blood bill is even important than the vigilante bill since it involves lives; to this end, there was the need for government to prioritize its passage.
He further called on the Ministry of Tourism to come out with a policy to ensure blood donation exercises are compulsorily made part of all festivals in Ghana to boost the National Blood Bank.
Dr Justina Kordai Ansah, the Chief Executive of the National Blood Service, affirmed the commitment of her outfit to sustain the campaign for 100 per cent voluntary blood donation to improve access to safe and adequate blood supplies for effective transfusion.
She, therefore, called for an effective nationally coordinated Blood Service and a sustained voluntary unpaid blood donation system, underlined with fundamental human values of altruism, respect, empathy and kindness.
Source: The Finder
