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MTN, a leading telecom company, donated blood on Valentine’s Day to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
In response to concerns of a severe shortage at the National Blood Bank at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and other hospitals, there was a countrywide effort to replenish blood banks.
For instance, health officials at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) recently appealed for more universal blood or blood group ‘O’ donors.
The yearly event offers the chance for MTN employees, business associates, and members of the general public to save lives on Valentine’s Day by giving a unit of blood.
A similar exercise was conducted in second-cycle schools in the Ashanti Region’s capital Kumasi by the “Save A Life” team, which included employees from MTN and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, to raise nearly 300 units of blood.
Participants in the practice came from the Kumasi Girls Senior High School (KGEE), Osei Kyeretwie Senior High (OKESS), and Kumasi Senior High Technical School (KSTS).
The campaign this year aims to fill 4000 units of blood across the nation’s blood banks.
The Northern Sector Head of MTN’s Technical Department, Mr. Charles Osei Akoto, stated that the capacity of medical staff to save lives depended on the supply of blood at various medical institutions.
He said that if Ghanaians prioritized voluntary blood donation and pushed the public to support the MTN campaign to save lives, the nation’s maternal mortality rate could be drastically lowered.
“MTN is a company that considers the people as part of the business because without customers there is no business, therefore we have great concern for the customer and for that matter their health is also key. We started the ‘Save a Life’ campaign in 2011 and we continued till now but we suspended two years ago due covid-19 pandemic and we have resumed this year” he explained.
“2013 MTN was the highest cooperate donor,2014 second highest cooperate donor,2014 we were the highest donor again and that is what we have achieved so far” Mr Akoto added.
The MTN foundation has received praise from Mr. Christian Oppong Mensah, the blood manager at KATH, for their ongoing assistance to the blood Bank.
“We have to commend MTN for supporting the Blood Bank on Valentines Day which others use to share gifts to their love ones they rather chose to donate blood to save life” Mr Oppong said.
“Blood is essential in hospitals, we use the blood to save cases such as women and child birth, accident victims, children with anaemia, cancer patients and other conditions and most of the regions in Ghana depends on the KATH Blood Bank” he stated.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com/Louis Gyamrerah
