Accra, Ghana, February 14, 2020//-MTN Ghana through its Foundation today cut a sod for the construction of a blood bank at the Maternity Ward of the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital in the Central Regional capital.
The blood bank facility which is being built at the cost of GHC300,000 when completed will be equipped by the Foundation, one of the main goals is to install a defibrillator cabinet in every room to provide easy access to first aid supplies as well as the AED itself.
Madam Rhodaline Mensah, Sustainability Manager at the MTN Ghana Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of the telecoms company who disclosed to journalists at the ‘Save A Life’ blood donation exercise, was confident the facility would help store enough units of blood for the hospital’s use.
Commenting on the annual exercise which falls on Valentine’s Day, Madam Mensah was hopefully that the company would achieve its target of 5,000 units of blood.
The exercise was held simultaneously across over 30 bleeding centres across all the 16 regions in the country to collect units of blood to augment the various blood banks in the country.
The Foundation instituted the blood donation exercise to collect blood to improve health delivery, according to Madam Mensah.
The exercise according to her gives MTN Ghana staff and other individuals the opportunity to donate blood and stock the National Blood Bank and other regional hospitals in the West African country.
The blood donation exercise was held in collaboration with the National Blood Service of the Ghana Health Service and the 37 Military Hospital.
On their part, the Public Relations Officer of National Blood Service, Stephen Addai-Baah; and the Senior Biomedical Scientist at the 37 Military Hospital commended MTN Ghana for keeping the annual exercise going nonstop.
They assured the company that the voluntary blood donated would be put into good use,
Instructively, the annual blood donation exercise which started in 2011 was in response to calls made by the National Blood Service for voluntary contributions to replenish critically low stocks of blood.
Since its inception, over 14,000 pints of blood have been collected. The 5,000 units of blood targeted in this year’s exercise will change the figure.
African Eye Report
