By Ngenwie Seraphine
Four regular blood donors amongst them 22 times donor have received certificates of recognition in Bamenda.
Four regular blood donors amongst them 22 times donor have received certificates of recognition in Bamenda.
The certificates
award event held last Friday July 20 at the Bamenda Regional hospital. According to Dr Njini Rose Supervisor of the
hospital is part of the National Blood Transfusion Program intended to
celebrate regular blood donors and encourage others to donate.
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| World Blood Donor Day 2018 |
Outstanding amongst the certified donors is a
Teacher and Maritime Engineer Che Louis Colins Ngwa who has been donating blood
for close to ten years with a record of 22 times. As to what motivated him to
always donate he said “it was a missed plane crash in Nigeria.” I he added “was
going to Ghana and it happened that we were to land the Lagos airport. We don’t
know what happened. The plane dropped for 10meters and all the engines went off
and I can say out of God’s intervention it took speed. From then I came to the
conclusion that there was more to my life than I thought it was. So from then I
decided to donate blood in show of appreciation to God for sparing my life.”
On his part a Nurse Fon Wamucho another
regular donor with a record of 15times being a health personal considers the
serving of lives as his mean goal. “Blood serves lives and that is my
motivation. I feel good inside when I know that a pines of blood I have given
has made somebody to live one more day, one more month or one more year.” Being
a health worker, Fon says he is further motivated by the fact that as he works
he sees people die every day when just a pine of blood would have kept them
alive. “So I said to myself why do I have healthy blood and I am watching
people die when my blood can save them? I decided to do that regularly to a
point where I feel bad when I go without doing it.”
Both donors admit that it is a tough decision
to make but their joy comes from the fact that people can live again after
receiving blood reason why they must work hard always to live a healthy life so
as to have healthy blood to always donate. Che Louis Colins however regrets
that some people still die after receiving blood and this to him is a
demoralizing factor though he is not prepared to stop blood donation any time
soon.
With a bed capacity of over 400, with a bed
according to the World Health Organisation WHO estimated to use at least seven
pines of blood annually, the Bamenda Regional Hospital thus has a demand of
about 3000pines of blood annually. According to Ako Atabon Fedelis
Epidemiologist and head of the blood bank unit of the Bamenda Regional
Hospital, his institution usual exceeds with over 4000 units of blood collected
and transfused in 2017 though they still remained in need of more blood. For
Bamenda alone Ako Atabon explain may need not fewer than 5000 pines of blood
with a population of over 500,000 and about 18000 pines for the entire Northwest
with a population of about 1.8M. With the growing need for blood due to
accidents, anemia, Hemodialysis, Caesarian Sections, the Blood bank head
expresses the wish to have more blood donation volunteers so as to continuously
replenish the blood bank of the hospital.