The Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission Ghana has declared the Month of January as a blood donation month and called on all of its healthy members to donate blood to save human lives.
Blood donation exercise has remained a flagship project of the Mission, especially during its annual convention, aimed at saving lives.
Dubbed the, “Ahmadiyya blood drive”, the initiative continues to address critical situations and most importantly saved many lives in the country.
Usually, such exercises were organised during the Mission’s annual conventions, but due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mission has made arrangements to ensure that members were able to donate blood in their localities.
Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the initiative, Mr Abdul Shakoor Kobina Abakah, Welfare, and Service to Humanity Secretary of the Majlis Khudam-ul-Ahmadiyya, Ghana said the initiative formed part of the welfare and service to humanity programme of the Jamaat.
The objective, he said had been to help in the emergency preparedness of hospitals and blood services by increasing the blood capacity of the nation.
“The intention is to ensure that the initiative started and finally adopted by the Jamaat at Jalsa is maintained with the sole purpose of helping to save lives at our various hospitals in the country”, he said.
Hospitals in the country, he noted relied on the blood donated by the Ahmadiyya Mission during its Jalsa.
This, he explained was because the beginning of every year was a critical situation for hospitals regarding their depleted blood banks, which normally resulted in deaths of many patients on admission during the first quarter of the year.
In that sense, he said there was a clarion call for constant voluntary blood donation because every day, children and mothers in childbirth die as a result of acute blood loss.
“Cancer patients, accident victims, and other patients, need blood transfusions to survive and most, unfortunately, many surgeries have had to be postponed due to the lack of blood”, he said.
Sharing his personal experience, Mr Abakah said he had been a donor for over fifteen years with many benefits.
“As an ardent donor, I always take the pleasure and desire to contribute my quota in saving lives through donating blood”, he said
He said according to the Holy Quran, the purpose of man’s creation was to worship Allah and help fellow humans.
Blood donation, he noted was one sure way of helping fellow humans, and this year, the Mission is hoping to donate about 4,200 pints of blood at the end of January.
In 2020, a total of 2,707 units of blood were donated by volunteers of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission which was the highest any organisation had donated in the country.
The exercise is often done in collaboration with the National Blood Service, the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital (CCTH), Greater Accra Regional Hospital, Trauma & Specialist Hospital, Tema General Hospital, Mercy Women’s Catholic Hospital, Koforidua Regional Hospital, Tarkwa Municipal Hospital, and other Regional and Municipal hospitals across the country.
Source: GNA
