Embrace blood donation drives, Ugandans urged
About 85% of blood is provided by students and the long third-term holiday often leads to plasma scarcity in hospitals.
Ugandans have been challenged to embrace the culture of donating blood to save lives.
The call was made by Esther Awori, the Blood Donation Recruiter at the Uganda Blood Transfusion Services (UBTS), at the fourth annual blood donation campaign sponsored by the Uganda Free Zones Authority (UFZA), a statutory body mandated to promote export-oriented investment.
This year’s edition in Kampala coincided with the marking of Valentine’s Day.
Awori expressed concern that many Ugandans shun donating blood, forcing the agency to mostly rely on students.
About 85% of blood is provided by students and the long third-term holiday often leads to plasma scarcity in hospitals.
“The perception towards blood donation is still very low and we are forced to rely on children, who give us safe blood. They do it out of the sensitization (we make),” Awori noted.
“When children grow up, we do find the donor base narrowing because of illnesses people get in their social lives. Diseases like hypertension, diabetes and others don’t allow people to donate blood. We know that people who are healthy are the only ones able to donate blood,” she added.
Doreen Kembabazi the Public Relations Officer, UFZA urged Ugandans to always embrace blood donation campaigns, to save lives.
“A number of clients are into export-oriented business. But we also know that a healthy community is one that invests. So blood donation is a very important element of that community because you never know when you actually need blood. It could be you, it could be your relative or it could be anyone else. So we thought we should respond to the call by UBTS to build a healthy population,” she said.
