60% Of Blood Donation Used For Children – Ofili

Over 60 percent of
blood donated at the medical facilities have been said to be used by children to regain their health status.
The Special Adviser to the Rivers State Governor on Sustainable Development Goals, Mrs Toru Ofili who revealed this at a health programme in Port Harcourt, recently, said it has become imperative that every Nigerian imbibe the attitude of being a voluntary blood donor in order to make blood readily available at the hospitals’ blood banks particularly for the saving of lives of children.
Describing children as innocent and dependent, Ofili stated that children’s health conditions were mostly critical and demanding critical attention and services to be regained.
In her lecture: Becoming an Advocate for Blood Donation’, Ofili said that it demands the involvement of everyone for the blood banks to function at any given time to save life.
“The Millennium Development Goal Three advocates Good Health For All by the year 2030 and we are working towards this but for it to be achieved, it demands that all hands must be on deck. The slogan for this programme, Share Blood, Give Blood must be the focus of every one of us and we must do it to save the life of people around us”.
While noting that people were in need, blood at one point or the other to save their lives, Ofili said that save blood transfusion save lives, adding that the programme was another platform to raise the awareness on voluntary blood donation and enriching the medical facilities with save blood and giving of life through them.
The Special Adviser said “without the active participation of everybody, including the government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), this cannot be achieved but together, the MDG  Three will be achieved”.
The Rivers State Commissioner for Health, Dr Theophilus Odagme who was represented by the ministry’s permanent secretary, Mrs Caroline Wali also averred that blood transfusion was mostly needed at child birth saying “during children birth, you are forced to accept blood from somebody you don’t know and you survive and so, everyone of us should be a voluntary blood donor as well as an advocate of voluntary blood donor”.

Lady Godknows Ogbulu