Telecommunications giant, MTN Ghana says it is hopeful of collecting about 3,500 pints of blood in this year’s ‘Save a life’ blood donation exercise.

The annual Valentine’s day event, which gives staff of MTN and the general public an opportunity to show love by donating blood; aims at stocking the blood banks of the various hospitals across the country.

This includes the National Blood Transfusion Services, Ridge Hospital, 37 Military Hospital and other hospitals in the various regions.

Delivering his speech at the opening ceremony, the Corporate Service Executive for MTN Ghana, Samuel Koranteng said since the inception of the donation exercise in 2011, the aim of the company has been to save life and give patients in need of blood a fighting chance.

According to him, testimonies and successes chalked through the exercise over the years, have also been encouraging.

“We have recorded so many heart warming stories of people who needed blood and have been saved through this exercise. Some of these stories have been told by our own staff whilst others are from our customers.

From a little over a 100 pints of blood that was recorded in our first exercise, we have come very far. Today we hope to collect 3,500 pints of blood from 19 bleeding centres set up across the country. Though ambitious we are hopeful of achieving this with the help and commitment of our customers. Since we started we have raised about 9500 pints of blood and we are looking forward to recording 10,000 pints milestone.”

He further revealed that, the telecommunication giant also had numerous projects and initiatives in the pipeline targeted at improving health care delivery in the country.

“MTN has declared this year “the year of the customer”. A year we commit to delighting our customers at all touch points. Through our foundation, we have planned several health projects that will help improve health delivery for our customers. As we collectively donate to save lives, we wish to assure mothers, children and babies who need any that MTN will always be there for them.”

The blood donation exercise has seen MTN Ghana Foundation being adjudged the highest corporate blood donor in 2013, second highest corporate donor in 2014 and one of the highest corporate donors in 2015.