Tema-Ghana, June 23, GNA – Biomedical laboratory scientists at the International Maritime Hospital (IMaH) in Tema have encouraged the public to voluntarily donate blood.
Doing so provides them with an opportunity to get free health screenings for various diseases, they explained.
The pre-donation screening covers HIV, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis, adding that a donor could also get to know their haemoglobin level, blood pressure, weight, pulse, and other important health-related issues through the screening.
Ms. Doris Kusima Baiden, Medical Laboratory Scientist in Charge of IMaH Blood Bank, supported by Mr. Robert Tetteh Djimajer, a Medical Laboratory Scientist, said a free pre-donation screening would be conducted on the voluntary donor to ensure healthy to donate, as well as a detailed screening of blood donated.
The IMaH biomedical laboratory scientists stated when addressing issues related to blood donation at the weekly “Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility! a Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy
The public health advocacy platform “Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility” is to investigate the components of four health communication approaches: informing, instructing, convincing, and promoting.
Ms. Baiden indicated that to ensure that Biomedical Laboratory Scientists do not transfuse any bacterial or virus-infected blood to patients, which could lead to other complications, they do vigorous analysis at the laboratory of the blood collected.
She said that if any medical issue were detected in the voluntary donor’s blood, they would call the donor to inform him or her of the outcome and advise the person to visit a hospital for checks and treatment.
Mr. Djimajer urged people to donate blood as a way of saving others, indicating that the donations help accident victims, anaemia patients, people on dialysis, cancer patients, children with malaria and sickle cell patients, among others.
Blood, when donated, has a five-week shelf life as the blood cells, even though preserved after the donation, die between 35 and 42 days later, making the blood unfit for transfusion, he said.
He explained that the blood donated could be given as a whole after the needed screening or processed for other blood products such as fresh frozen plasma, cryoprecipitate, and concentrated red cells, which help in some medical conditions.
