15 Jun 2023

Botswana prides itself in the ability to improve and sustain the health of its people through voluntary and unpaid blood donation.

Few people are torch bearers of the success stories and attainment of voluntary blood donation.

They include Pledge 25 Youth Club who compaign and recruit blood donors, community leaders in different villages and other critical stakeholders who facilitate blood donation drives.

Minister of Health Dr Edwin Dikoloti said this at the World Blood Donor Day commemoration held in Serowe on Wednesday.

Dr Dikoloti said many countries, including Botswana,  continued to face challenges of making sufficient blood available while ensuring its quality and safety.

He said access to secure blood supply based on voluntary unpaid donation was vital for every patient including those requiring life-long and regular transfusion for various medical an surgical conditions.

Lack of access to safe blood and blood products had a significant impact on patients.

In 2022, the national collection was 24 619 pints being a slight improvement from the 2021 collection of 24 224 pints. This low collection has a negative impact on transfusion-dependent patients.

He emphasised that Botswana had great potential to sustain its blood supply without outsourcing from other countries considering its healthy youth of around 60 per cent of the population.

Every single blood drop and blood product donation was a precious lifesaving gift.  He said this year’s theme was: Give Blood, Give Plasma, Share Life, Share Often. It highlights the importance of blood donation, with a role in the management of immune deficiency related diseases and hemophilia cases.

The theme focused on the patient requiring lifelong transfusion and underlined the role every single person could play by giving the valuable gift of blood or plasma and the importance of giving blood or plasma regularly, to create a safe and sustainable supply of blood and blood products that could always be available all over the world so that all patients in need of blood, could receive a timely treatment.

“I call upon every eligible Motswana wherever they are to join these heroes and heroines and donate blood,” he said. “These donations indeed go a long way in supporting all health service providers from public, private and civil society health care settings.”

He said the unprecedented strain brought by COVID-19 on public health systems and on society taught Botswana the need to always be prepared for health emergencies all the time which required the nation to act now, to ensure that they was never blood shortages.

Country representative of the WHO, Dr Josephine Namboze said the day was meant to raise awareness of safe blood and blood products and highlight the critical contribution of voluntary unpaid donors to save lives.Dr Namboze said the day focused on achieving universal access to safe blood transfusion, adding that over the years, the member states of the WHO African region made progress in establishing nationally coordinated blood transfusion service policy frame works and national standards for collecting, testing, processing, storing and distributing blood and blood products.

However blood collection remains low across the world and countries need to catch up to meet the 45 000 pints annual target, Dr Namboze said.

Serowe/Palapye District Health Management Team coordinator, Dr Tom Baaisi, saw the day as an opportunity to call upon those still shying away from donating blood, especially the youth since it was necessary for them to come on board and save their nation.

Dr Baaisi said the purpose of the World Blood Donor day was to celebrate and thank individuals who donated blood and encourage more people to become new donors.

The day was also meant to transform the quality of life for transfusion-dependent patients, help built a secure blood supply globally and to mobilise support at national, regional and global levels among government and development partners to invest in, strengthen and sustain national blood programmes.

At the end,  Minister Dikoloti toured the old Sekgoma facility which is to be become a Substance Abuse Rehabilitation Centre. ENDS