Mohammed was involved in a road traffic accident on the Lagos-Abeokuta expressway. His car was badly mangled and it took a concerted effort of road travellers and emergency services to rescue him. He had lost a lot of blood, was unconscious on arrival in the closest private hospital and needed an immediate blood transfusion but there was no blood in the facility and all effort to get from a blood bank failed. His family was tracked down but before an appropriate donor could be found and blood screened, Mohammed lost his life.
This scenario is almost a daily occurrence in Nigeria with lives being lost unnecessarily as a result of a lack of available blood.
Medical experts have decried the low level of blood donation in the country and attributed it to the high mortality rate in cases of emergency and disasters. Many victims do not have timely access to blood and there is an absence of donors as well as a lack of basic laboratory services to test the blood.
There are more than 11 operational centres across the six geopolitical zones in the country, including Abuja, Kaduna, Owerri, Ibadan, Lokoja, Jos, Maiduguri, Port-Harcourt, Benin City, Nangere – Potiskum, and Abeokuta. Surprisingly there is a low level of blood in the blood banks in each state despite the large population of Nigerians. It is estimated at Nigeria’s current level of health care delivery, that about 1.5 million units of blood per annum will be required. This was evident after the bomb blast in Nyanya, Abuja when a call was made to the public for a massive blood donation.
The shortage of blood in hospitals has led to the proliferation of illegal sources and improperly screened blood in many parts of the country. The problem is inadequate sensitization about how simple and harmless the process of blood donation is coupled with a lack of mobile blood donation units that the populace can access.
Blood donation can be helpful to donors to know their current health status because of the screening the donors undergo which also can result in health problems being more quickly identified and treated. In the case of HIV for instance, proper treatment could be started early.
Even though blood donation is voluntary, it should be part of the responsibility healthy citizens owe their fellow countrymen because you do not know who might need a blood transfusion and when.
Have you ever considered donating blood? Have you ever received blood?
Let this question linger in our minds and the next time you are in a health clinic, ask a medical personnel how you can donate blood. The life you may be saving might be yours.
