Blood Not For Sale In UPTH – CMD

The Chief Medical Di
rector of University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, (UPTH), Prof. Aaron Ojule, has debunked insinuations that blood is sold in the hospital.
He explained that “blood is not a commodity and not for sale, rioting that it is donated by kind hearted individuals and also given free to patients.
The CMD, noted however that what clients pay for is the processing of the blood before it is given to any recipient.
“Though blood is a life saving element it can also be injurious, before we give blood, we check for compatibility, safety and need among other things. This cost is borne by the recipient. These charges and what we call processing fee”, he noted.
He explained that once money is paid for processing, it cannot be refunded, but the proceeded blood could be passed on to some other person.
He however lamented the dearth of voluntary blood donors in Nigeria, saying that “people don’t donate blood so the blood bank is depleted of blood, so when a patient needs blood, we ask to bring people that will donate blood for them”.
He also said, the hospital was now doing re-placement donation, whereby a person donates blood for his or her future use.
“When you donate blood, a donation slip is given to you if for any reason you no longer need the blood you donate slip can be kept for when you might need the blood or it can be passed on to someone else”.
He appealed to kind-hearted individuals to come forward and donate blood, because “you never can tell the life you might save”.
A healthy person can donate blood up to four times in one year, the Prof. Ojule said.

Tonye Nria-Dappa