By Bernice Bessey
Melcom Care Foundation, a subsidiary of the Melcom Group of Companies, to help save lives at various hospitals and clinics across the country, yesterday began its journey, targeted at collecting more than 1,000 pints of blood for the National Blood Service.
The lifesaving exercise was motivated by the country’s long standing history of road accidents, which often saw victims die because the hospitals lacked blood to save their lives.
According to the National Road Safety Commission, from January to December last year, a total number of 1,474 people perished in road accidents. With 8,448 people suffering various degrees of injuries, the number of vehicles involved was 15,505.
The Melcom Group Communication Director, Mr. Godwin Avenorbgo, addressing the media at the company’s largest shop, Melcom Plus, in Accra, said the exercise was conducted at 18 branches across the country.
According to him, collection of blood to support the National Blood Service to save lives was an annual event that the group had embarked on since 2013.
Mr. Avenorgbo stated that Melcom was concerned with exercise because the Police Traffic and Transport Department’s record of the 2nd quarter of 2015 alone indicated that 554 pedestrians were knocked down, 447 lost their lives while 2,381 got injured.
“Estimates show that Ghana loses US$ 230million annually due to road accidents, leaving 1,600 people dead with 23% of the pedestrian fatalities being children below age 16,” he noted.
He thus called on authorities to tighten up road safety measures to ensure catastrophes on the road were reduced to the barest minimum.
He also used the occasion to encourage Ghanaians and other residents to voluntarily donate blood to help save lives of patients, including pregnant mothers, accident victims, infants and others who required blood due to aliments.
He advised Ghanaians not to wait until their relatives were seriously in need of blood to give themselves out for the blood donation exercise.
Mr. Avenorgbo said research had shown that people who donated blood stood the chance of balancing iron level in the blood, had better blood flow, were with mini physical and longer life.
He asked persons above 18 years of age to make it a point to donate blood voluntarily to help others and the whole society. Blood, he said, could be donated at least once or twice a year. However, but hypertension and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) patients, as well as homosexuals, Mr Avenorgbo explained, were exempted from the exercise.
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