The Samuel Amo Tobin Foundation, over the weekend organised a blood donation and health screening exercise in Accra to support the National Blood Service to restock the National Blood Bank.

The donation exercise, which took place at the Atinka Media Village, saw members of the public screened for various ailments and voluntarily donated blood as part of the Foundation's annual activities.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mrs Harriet Nottinson Asante, the Executive Director of the Foundation, said the exercise was in response to a call made by the National Blood Service.

She said the Foundation was not only undertaking the blood donation exercise but was also delivering free medical service to the public.

Mrs Asante said it was essential to have enough blood stored because pregnant women, accident victims, and malaria patients would need blood, adding that, it would not be prudent to wait for such a needful time before donating, therefore the need to organise the exercise.

She said last year, over 265 showed up out of which only three could not donate and expressed the hope that this year, 500 people could partake in the exercise to make blood available at the National Blood Bank.

She urged other corporate bodies and individuals to undertake the exercise to assist the National Blood Service to avoid situations of blood shortage.

Mr Stephen Addai-Baah, the Public Relations Officer of the National Blood Service, said the Service’s projection was to get most Ghanaians to voluntarily donate blood on an annual basis.

He said the Service’s anticipation was that if one per cent of the population donated blood, it would assist in getting the national requirement, but that had not always been the case as the country usually got below 50 per cent.

He said last year, the country had about 37 per cent of voluntary donations, which was not helpful and urged the public to assist the Service to restock the National Blood Bank, adding it was very helpful to get blood waiting for patients than patients waiting for blood.

Mr Addai-Baah said any healthy individual between the ages of 17 and 60 years qualified to donate blood at least twice in a year.

He said the blood donation exercise carried out by the Samuel Amo Tobin Foundation would go a long way to augment the stock level at the Service.