Members of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), Edo State Hospitals Management Board, on Monday, donated blood for use by indigent patients who are in urgent need of blood transfusion.
The donation was part of the first quarterly Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) of the association in 2021.
Declaring the event open, Dr Moses Imologomhe, the Managing Director of the Central Hospital, Benin, commended the association’s leadership and members for deeming it fit to donate for poor patients, adding that the gesture was timely because the public was not keen on blood donation.
Imologomhe, who decried the shortage of blood in hospitals, urged the public to cultivate the habit of periodic donation of blood to save lives.
“Blood donation is good because it helps the donors to know their health status, as well as treat any observed ailments. We are happy that the ARD is keying into the very good things happening in this hospital,” he added.
The President of the association, Dr Osayande Edorisiagbon, said that the donation was conceived to ameliorate the financial burden on indigent patients whenever they came to the hospital.
The blood, the president said, would be used for poor pregnant women who might need it, indigent children, in the paediatric clinic, among other emergencies.
He said “we do between three to four OGMs every year and we usually have scientific conference where we invite professionals in particular fields to come and educate us more so that we can improve our knowledge and skills on management of our patients.
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“But this time around, we decided to bring this together where we can invite doctors and other well-meaning Nigerians to come and donate blood so that we can have it in stock.
“In case we come across any of these patients, we can make the blood available to them as much as possible at no cost to them at all.
“That is why we have been able to put this programme before our business session tomorrow to be able to get people together, get doctors together and even non-doctors alike to come around and donate blood for this purpose.
“This will be our own humanitarian service or free service in respect of what we do in the clinic to the general populace,” Edorisiagbon said.
Edorisiagbon asserted that the donation would be a continuous event as all donors could not be taken in a day, adding that the association would also take the blood donation campaign to public places and offices to educate the public on the benefits of blood donation.
He explained that “one of the benefits of blood donation is that you have the opportunity to do general screening because you cannot donate blood when you are not fit.
“When you come to donate blood, screenings are done to know your health status. This can help to reveal the kind of treatment you need at that time, and saves one of the cardiac diseases.”
Resident doctors donate blood for indigent patients in Edo
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