Health analyst Samuel Arthur says Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service must provide the National Blood Service with the resources it needs to ensure adequate blood is available to patients,
Speaking to Isaac Addae on Morning Starr on Starr FM, Samuel Arthur explained that when health facilities indicate that there is no blood, it does not necessarily mean there is no blood available at all.
“There are instances where when they say there’s no blood, it’s not that they don’t have blood, but they may have blood, the blood type that particular blood type that they need for the patient is not available,” he said.
According to Samuel Arthur blood availability remains one of the critical issues that must be addressed within Ghana’s health sector, particularly because patients may sometimes be unable to access the specific blood type required for their treatment.
He warned that unless the country addresses challenges surrounding blood availability, women could continue to lose their lives during childbirth.
“But until we fix the issue about blood, women will continue to lose a lot of women at the point of delivery, and this is something we need to look at”.he said.
He said the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service must ensure that the Ghana Blood Service receives the resources required to improve the situation.
“For me, the fact that the ministry and the Ghana Health Service is not giving, probably, the blood, the Ghana the blood service, all the resources they need,” he said.
Samuel Arthur also called for continuous blood collection from communities to ensure that enough blood is available when needed.
“we should be taking blood from the community at every time, any time, because we need as much as can be available,” he said.
However, he noted that blood collection also requires proper management, explaining that collecting too much blood within a short period could result in some of it going bad.
“Unfortunately, also for us, when we want to take everybody’s blood at the same time, over a short period, it goes bad. So there’s also a certain management of the blood system that we need, and that has to resonate with the community,” he said.
Source: Starrfm.com.gh/Pamela Quayeson
