Georgetown: It has been several years now that the Ministry of Health has been advocating and putting measures in place to bolster voluntary blood donation rather than family replacement donations at the country’s blood collection locations. At the moment voluntary blood donation stands at around 80 percent which according to Director of Regional Health Services, Dr. Narine Singh, indicates that “it is catching on.”
In fact the Ministry of Health has taken its efforts to raise awareness to an all time new level with the Minister of Health himself, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran, taking to the national television station to host a programme called ‘Pulse Beat’. Aided by Dr. Singh, the Minister has been seeking to highlight the importance of voluntary blood donation.
According to the World Health Organisation safe blood donors are the cornerstone of a safe and adequate supply of blood and blood products. As such it has been deduced that the safest blood donors are voluntary, non-remunerated blood donors from low-risk populations. Despite this, family/replacement and paid donors, which are associated with a significantly higher prevalence of Transfusion-Transmissible Infections (TTIs) including HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Syphilis and Chagas disease, still provide more than 50 percent of the blood collected in developing countries.
Against this background the WHO has been advocating and recommends to its Member States to develop national blood transfusion services based on voluntary non-remunerated regular blood donation in accordance with the World Health Assembly resolution 28.72, which was adopted in 1975.
As a result the local Ministry of Health has been trying for years to achieve 100 percent voluntary blood donation. According to Dr. Singh in the past people were only known to donate blood when there was a need, perhaps when a family member or close friend was in dire need. “In the past we even had situations where people use to actually buy blood…People would sell their blood for a price but this situation has since changed.”
However, he pointed out that there is yet need for a new culture to be embraced where persons freely donate blood. He noted though that in order for this to be achieved there is need for promotion of the importance of donation and moves to further educate the public. At the moment the Ministry of Health has five fixed blood transfusion sites which members of the public can access. These include the National blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) which is located in the Georgetown Public Hospital Compound, the West Demerara Regional Hospital, the Suddie, Linden and New Amsterdam Hospitals. Persons according to Dr. Singh can visit these locations Monday through Friday to donate blood. However, donations are not limited to these facilities as according to Dr. Singh the Ministry can make available a mobile unit, upon request, which can be taken to locations where there are no fixed sites, providing that substantial donations will be made. “Usually we cater for about 25 donors and we would go to those areas and collect the blood right at those sites.”
Dr. Singh explained that donating blood is a relatively simple process which is preceded by the completion of a questionnaire which seeks to gather personal information about the donor. Persons are also subjected to a mini health check-up. “We screen donors to make sure that they are not high-risk, that is, that they do not engage in high-risk behaviours…” Dr. Singh said.
The criteria used to select donors require that persons must be between the ages of 16 and 50 but pregnant women are not allowed to donate. Persons must be of a certain body size which is no less than 125 pounds as according to Dr. Singh donors cannot be malnourished or anemic. A normal healthy person, providing that they do not have any medical condition, can in fact donate blood every three months, Dr. Singh added. “This does not take away anything from you…the normal workings of the human body is that a single blood cell last about 120 days…after this process it would die and it would renew itself, so donating the blood is just part of this renewal process because your body would actually renew it anyway,” Dr. Singh asserted.
The mini-health check, he noted, could also serve as a means to help detect some health issues. “A lot of the time people come to us to donate blood and they do not even know that they are hypertensive and we are able to refer them for follow-up care.”
Misconception
The Minister of Health also alluded to the notion that some persons are not willing to donate blood as they are fearful that the process is believed to be a painful one. However, he assured that this could not be further from the truth. “Very few people would like to be punctured by a needle but we can assure you…this takes less than two or three seconds for the needle to penetrate the site from which the blood will be drawn.”
He also dispelled concerns that there is no possibility that the donor could be contaminated by an external source. The process of extracting blood is undertaken through the insertion of a needle into a vein which is conducted by an expert Blood Donor Attendant who utilizes a new blood transfusion set for each donor, the officials explained. No set is reused at any point and the transfusion pack is opened in clear view of the donor, they added. “There is one sterile package, with one sterile needle, with a sterile bag made in the factory…there is no recycling. The only discomfort that a donor would endure is a little ‘mosquito-bite’ prick when the needle enters the vein,” according to Dr. Ramsaran.
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