26 Jul 2020

A recruitment officer at the National Blood Transfusion Services (NBTS), Ms Botho Gaobotse, says the centre has been grappling with meeting the 45 000 pints target.

In an interview, Ms Gaobotse said the highest they have ever reached was 27 000 pints in 2016, while last year they only managed 25 000 pints.

“Not a single year have we ever managed to come any closer to meeting the target and this year the situation looks even more gloom as we have so far only managed around 12 000 pints and mind you, we are already half way through the year,” she said.

She said the 45 000 target  was in accordance with the World Health Organisation standard, which advised countries to have pints equivalent to about two per cent of its total population in the blood bank.

She said individuals in need of blood included victims of road accidents, cancer and low blood patients.

To address the shortage, Ms Gaobotse said, the NBTS embarked on a national blood donation outreach programme, which she said was also meant to make up for time lost during lockdown.

She said the campaign team would be in Jwaneng next week and therefore appealed to the Jwaneng community to come out in large numbers to donate blood.

She urged Batswana to make donating blood a habit and not leave the burden to the ministry officials.

“They should also know that it is not possible to establish a blood factory like it could be done with other things, so blood availability in banks depends solely on human donations,” she stressed.

Ms Gaobotse also stated that in donating blood, the donor also benefitted since it helped their body to detox and get used to regenerating blood as well as helping the heart to pump smoothly.

She said the outreach would also avail an opportunity for donors to be screened for other ailments such as Hepatitis B and C, Syphilis and HIV, among others. ENDS