Talent Gore
STUDENTS are the dominant force when it comes to donations being mae to the National Blood Services Zimbabwe.
The has intensified efforts to increase the country’s blood stocks by partnering with churches and community leaders to try and encourage people to donate blood.
The NBSZ is mandated to supply public health institutions with blood products, which are then provided for free, to any patient in need.
NBSZ chief executive, Lucy Marowa, said schoolchildren make up the majority of the country’s blood donors, with adults accounting for about 10 percent of blood collections.
“As National Blood Services Zimbabwe we do have adequate stocks of blood meaning that we have about a three day supply of blood stocks,” she said.
“In terms of actual numbers we are sitting at over 3 000 units in the blood bank of which 1000 units are ready for distribution at any given time and about 2000 still need to be tested and made available.
“For us to be comfortable we want to be sitting on five days’ cover so that we can safely say we have enough stocks.
“However, we are not in a crisis as much as we want to pull up the stocks and get them to cover for five days, we have enough blood that can last us for three days.”
Marowa said they want to keep on boosting the stocks. As schools are closed, we want to concentrate on community panels to make sure that we never go below three days’ cover.
“We have quite a number of community panels that we approach to help us with blood during the school holidays,” she said.
Marowa added:
“We have to make sure the product is available and to make sure that, at any time, the blood stocks are available as and when required.”