The National Blood Service (NBS) has stressed the need for more Ghanaians, especially Family Replacement Blood Donors (FRDs), to voluntarily dedicate themselves to blood donation to help the country achieve a 100 per cent donation by 2017.
Currently, only about 44 per cent of blood donated comes from voluntary non-remuneration blood donors while the remaining percentage comes from FRDs, but the challenges associated with FRDs does not ensure regular and constant supply of blood needed to save lives.
FRDs are people who donate blood because someone they know needs a blood transfusion, or have been transfused.
Mr Stephen Danso, Senior Blood Donor Recruitment Officer of NBS, made the call on Wednesday at a day's training workshop organised in Cape Coast by the NBS in collaboration with Olusegun Obasanjo Foundation for executives of Pledge/Club 25 in the Central Region.
Pledge/Club 25 is a nine-month project being run from October this year to June 2015 to establish a cohort of safe, regular non-remunerated blood donors among the youth towards the achievement of 100 per cent voluntary blood donation.
It is being piloted within the southern area blood centre which consists of Central, Western, Eastern, Volta and Greater Accra regions with a target to collect 5,000 units of blood within the period.
Mr Danso said in Ghana FRDs thrived due to inadequate supply of blood from voluntary donors, little or no financial cost to Health Service in bringing in donors, no effort required by staff to bring in donors among others.
He said some challenges of the FRDs were that the system was not reliant for emergencies since donors gave blood on request and their blood did not necessarily replace the quantity and types of blood administered.
He said their blood may not be available when it was needed, less safe for transfusion coupled with the unfriendliness of the system which put patients and relatives under pressure to produce blood donors.
Mr Danso said FRDs were targeted to become voluntary blood donors since they made up a huge chunk of the eligible donor population and nearly 50 to 99 per cent of blood donors in Ghana.
He said there was the need to covert FRDs to regular donors due to lack of school donors during vacations to ensure long-term sustainability of blood supply as repeat donors were more likely to donate again.
Mr Michael Sottie, Donor Service Manager of NBS, urged participants to adopt the culture of voluntary blood donation instead of focusing on the incentives.
Participants were taken through topics such as Community Blood Mobilization, Donor Recruitment and Retention, Donor Loyalty, Interpersonal Communications Skills, Marketing and Communication for Blood Donor Recruitment and Conversion of Family Replacement Donors.
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