As Wednesday marked the global observance of World Blood Donor Day, Advisor to the Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy disclosed the projected target of 12,000 units of donated blood this year.
This statement was made during a World Blood Donor Day ceremony hosted by the Health Ministry’s National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) as a means to honour voluntary blood donors and encourage more persons to give blood.
To be considered eligible to donate blood, the Health Ministry stipulates that persons must be 17 years or older, weigh at least 110 pounds, be healthy and not infected or affected with a blood-borne disease, and be willing to donate blood.
Reiterating this year’s theme “Give blood, give plasma, share life, share often,” NBTS Director Dr. Pedro Lewis encouraged those eligible to make an effort to donate blood.
“The focus this year is also on chronic disease patients, including sickle cell anaemia patients, thalassemia patients. Without your help, those patients can’t earn a living, can’t go to school. They need your help to survive on a daily basis,” Dr. Lewis said.
Last year, the NBTS facilitated the collection of just over 10,000 units of blood through collaboration with about 400 organisations around the country.
“Now that we are using plasma and platelets, every donation benefits and saves three lives. So, when we talk about 10,000 units, we talk about the potential of saving 30,000 lives per year,” Ramsammy said.
This year, the goal is 12,000 units of blood. Very quickly, however, Dr. Ramsammy noted that this target will have to rapidly increase to 15,000 units per year.
Guyana has made significant leaps in its blood donation rates, recording about 800 per cent more voluntary blood donation since the last two decades, according to Ramsammy who added that Guyana has also achieved 100 per cent of voluntary blood donation.
“[Over 10 years ago,] we were in a situation where we actually had people who became disabled because we could not provide enough blood and blood products to save them from a disabling situation. We actually had people who died because they did not have access to enough blood. Today, we don’t have that situation,” Ramsammy said.
He explained that the country is in a good situation where everyone in need is being taken care of, either because there is blood or blood products in stock or there is a process to ensure that persons will have their needs met.
“In terms of every 1000 people who are eligible to donate, we have now reached a rate of about 16 per 1000 and that is the average for high middle-income countries,” he said.
He noted that while this is an impressive achievement, Guyana still has ways to go to reach the ranks of developed nations such as the United States which records blood donation rates of about 35 persons per 1000 and Europe which notes donations of about every 31 persons per 1000.
“The programme has grown where we have to move to blood-derived products. We’re still one of the countries that don’t produce that. Guyana is one of the countries that imports plasma-derived products. This is how our programme has grown–in terms of best practices, we are continuing to develop that,” Dr. Ramsammy added.
During the NBTS ceremony, awards were also presented to several long-standing blood donors as well as organisations who host blood drives throughout the year.
These included Marian Academy, Saraswati Vidya Niketan, Guyana Shorebase, Queenstown Masjid, Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), Guyana Industrial Training Centre (GITC) and Dr. Balwant Singh Hospital.
