World Blood Donor Day: RSG Promises Blood Bank Elevation

As part of activities to
mark the World Blood Donor Day, the Rivers State Government has promised that it would elevate the blood bank at the state-owned medical facility, Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMSH) to further save the lives of its citizens.
The Commissioner for Health, Dr Theophilus Odagme made the promise during the advocacy session of the World Blood Donor Day jointly celebrated by the Rivers State government and the Rivers State Sustainable Development office at the Conference Hall, BMSH, Port Harcourt, yesterday.
Represented by the Permanent Secretary, Rivers State Ministry of Health, Mrs Caroline Wali, Odagme said the elevation would strengthen the facility’s blood bank management system as well as create a conducive atmosphere for blood donation activities.
While noting that a large number of people were in need of blood transfusion on a daily basis, Odagme said it has become imperative that everybody becomes not only a blood donor advocate but volunteer to help save the lives of the people of the state.
The commissioner who noted that blood transfusion was needed in most medical health cases said “especially during childbirth, you are like forced to accept blood from somebody you do not know and it takes a voluntary donation for the blood to be available to save her life”.
Odagme further lauded the various  partners for their efforts towards making the event a realisation.
Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the State Governor on the Sustainable Development Goals, Mrs Toru Ofili noted that the day was commemorated to raise the awareness on blood donation as well as thanked voluntary blood donors for their laudable efforts in making blood available in blood banks.
Speaking on the theme of the 2016 World Blood Donor Day “Blood Connects Us All,” Ofili stated that blood donation was an activity devoid of ethnicity, gender or colour maintaining that it was still blood that connects all humankind.
Ofili said “there is the need for blood donation everyday because patients are always admitted into the hospitals and most of them need blood transfusion to survive from their ailments. A lot of us here are recipients of blood donation and this is done irrespective of ethnicity, race, gender or colour”.
The Special Adviser who noted that health is wealth said the office was driven by that passion and so, partnered with the state government in creating the awareness and making blood readily available for use by the experts in their courses of saving lives of people in the state.
“Without the active participation of everybody, this aim can not be achieved. We all must come together and together we will achieve it”, she said.

Lady Godknows Ogbulu