The Sunday Mail
Every year on June 14, Zimbabwe joins the rest of the world in commemorating the World Blood Donor Day. The event serves to thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood and also to raise wider awareness of the need for regular blood donations to ensure that all individuals and communities have access to affordable and timely supplies of safe and quality-assured blood and blood products.
This is an integral part of universal health coverage and a key component of effective health systems. Zimbabwe activated the local World Blood Donor Day campaign on the 1st of May 2019 under the theme Safe Blood for All.
The 2019 Zimbabwe World Blood Donor Day campaign is in two phases, that is, it will traditionally commemorate the invaluable acts by blood donors and at the same time raise funds for school blood collection sites that were affected by the devastating Cyclone Idai. NBSZ has taken up this project through a 3 phased approach between the period April to November 2019.
This event will be held in Africa for the second time after it was initially held in South Africa in 2004. Zimbabwe is amongst the six countries invited globally to present a paper during the global commemorations.
The Red Month Campaign essentially recognises the importance of the World Blood Donor Day and also aims at raising wider awareness on the important duty done by voluntary blood donors who save thousands of lives everyday. Organisations that have joined the campaign include NetOne Cellular and The Masvingo Mirror. The NBSZ held its Red Day on May 7.
NBSZ took the campaign to the community through the World Blood Donor Day awareness clean up and blood donation day that was held on the May 10 2019 at Kuwadzana 2 High School which is one of NBSZ blood donation panels.
The campaign was open to the public and other organisations who wanted to partner and this saw the local community led by the SDC taking part in the campaign. NetOne was amongst the corporates who rendered their support for the campaign by also participating. Speaking at the campaign on behalf of Dr Obadiah Moyo, Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr Maxwell Hove, Director Pathology Services commended NBSZ for supporting the December 5 2018 Presidential declaration which declared the first Friday of each calendar month as a National Clean-Up Day through the World Blood Donor Day Awareness Community Clean Up.
Dr Hove also thanked all the blood donors including those from Kuwadzana 2 High School and the community, who have made it possible for the blood bank to have enough stocks to supply hospitals with enough blood. He said this as a result of NBSZ scaling up its national collections and activities to ensure the blood bank is well stocked since advent of the July 1 2018 free blood initiative introduced by the Government which made blood free at all Public Health Institutions.
Before concluding his remarks Dr Hove made special mention to sponsor NetOne, for the continued support of the Blood Programme in Zimbabwe and for joining in the clean-up exercise. NetOne has been supporting NBSZ for 13 years since 2006.
Ms Esther Massundah, the NBSZ public affairs manager who was acting CEO at the event, spoke highly of the tremendous work by Kuwadzana 2 High School who are one of the NBSZ’s best performing blood collection sites. On another note, Ms Massundah lamented the devastation and damaged caused by Cyclone Idai especially in Manicaland.
As a result NBSZ is currently engaged in a CSR project aimed at mobilising resources in cash or kind towards six schools affected by the Cyclone in Manicaland, which were also NBSZ blood collection sites. She encouraged well-wishers who want to partner the Service in this CSR project to support through the NBSZ branch offices countrywide.
In addition to the initiatives being carried out by NBSZ, Joina City as sponsors of the NBSZ since 2015 has collected over 2 500kg of clothing for adults and children, detergents, dry food stuffs as well as 1 200 bags of cement to assist Cyclone Idai victims. As part of the campaign, the phase two of the campaign will see the handover of the donations to the affected schools will held in Manicaland during the Zimbabwe World Blood Donor Day commemorations scheduled for July 6 2019. NBSZ will soon be launching more activities as part of the Zimbabwe World Blood Donor Day campaign.
Safe blood for all — Be The 1
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