Voluntary blood donation

rising, patient’s need up

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, November 8 (PIA)—Voluntary blood donation in the recent year has gone up over 300 times more than usual, but with trauma cases on the rise, there is still a need to stock up more blood units.  

Thanks to the National Voluntary Blood Services Program (NVBSP), which is part of the implementation of Republic Act No. 7719 or the National Blood Services Act of 1994, things have eased up a bit, said Provincial Health Office blood services coordinator and nurse Milagros Israel, over at Kapihan sa PIA, Thursday.

The NVBSP promotes voluntary blood donation to provide sufficient supply of safe blood and to regulate blood banks, while inculcating public awareness that blood donation is a humanitarian, and is thus a heroic act.

A program under the Department of Health, the target is to be able to stock up on blood for least 1% of the entire population as World Health Organization pegged goal.

With about 1.3 million population, Bohol would ideally have to store 13,000 units or about a thousand units in a month.

But the local collection has been far from the ideal, until recently, Israel shared.

Data from the Governor Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital (GCGMH) Blood Service Facility, showed the recent increase in blood collection after the NVBSP.

Laos noted is the reversed trend from blood replacement to voluntary donation as the main source of supply, a comparative tracking chart on blood collection here between 2012 to 2018 showed.

According to the data as provided by GCGMH Blood Bank Section Head Nestor Bompat, voluntary blood donation in 2018 reached an unprecedented 8,641 blood units, from a very low 340 blood units seven years ago in 2012.

That same year, hospital blood centers were able to collect 5,120 blood units from replacements as patients and their relatives labored to tug a blood donor to the hospitals to for bleeding so the family could replace any blood unit used by their patients.

This was amidst all the government interventions to stock up on fresh whole blood as life saving measure to help replace lost blood due to injury or surgery.  

In 2012 for example, blood from voluntary donations only comprise 15% compared to the 85% from blood replacements.

In 2018 for example, of the 11,285 blood unit collected for the entire year, 8,641 blood units were sourced out from voluntary blood donation while only 2,644 have been collected as replacement blood.

“We have been going to the barangays, LGUs, schools, companies, religious groups and other possible source to explain to them about the importance of blood donation and the need to stock on them with the increasing number of hospital cases needing blood transfusion,” Israel shared.

Then when the government included in its scorecards for LGUs the NVBSP, things even got better.

This year for example, since blood banks started their mobile blood donation activities, about 122 mobile blood donations have been organized from January to September of 2019.

And of the 122, 92% of the activities were LGU coordinated, 20% were from companies in their corporate social responsibility and 6% were from religious groups. Schools also contributed about 2% of the entire activities this year.

When there are already positive signs of increase, GCGMH chief Dr Mutya Kismet Macuno is also apprehensive that the trauma victims arriving at the hospital emergency rooms are also on the rise.

Vehicular accidents are among those with the biggest need for blood transfusion during surgery or to replace certain lost blood components.

Other than trauma victims, other hospital treatments that need more plod supplies for transfusion are cancer patients, dengue victims and ceasarian delivery. (rahc/PIA_7/Bohol)

BLOOD STOCKS INCREASING. The active participation of LGUs in the blood donation program has heaped much on the stocks but this does not mean that we stop from donating, because we have seen the increase of trauma cases due to motor vehicle accidents, said Mila Israel of PHO. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)