Jamaica is now collecting about half of the yearly blood donation target, prompting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Dunstan Bryan, to issue another appeal for people to give blood.

“Right now we average about 30,000 units of blood every year. But when we do the analysis and we understand what it is that is required by the population, we need 60,000 units of blood for the Jamaican population,” said Bryan at a World Blood Donor Day recognition ceremony last Friday.

Jamaica’s National Blood Transfusion Service celebrated the day under the theme, “20 years of celebrating giving: Thank you, blood donors”.

According to Bryan, the Ministry of Health and Wellness will be launching a communication campaign to improve conversations and awareness around what he described as the three pillars of blood donation: people, place, and purpose.

He said more work needs to be done to ensure Jamaicans understand that one unit of blood can save either their own life or the life of a loved one in the near future.

“Every unit of blood can save three lives and that’s a tremendous outcome of just one instance of selflessness… Therefore, our people focus must look at donors who we have now and how do we translate their message into a wider population,” said Bryan.

Alongside improving awareness, Bryan, while pointing to work being done at the Spanish Town Hospital, said blood transfusion facilities across the island need to be expanded to improve access for more people to give blood.

“Another conversation we need to have in terms of place is the fact that there is a risk around the blood services and the risk is that the majority of the service relies on one facility and if that one facility is compromised in any way the entire system goes down and, therefore, the Government of Jamaica must invest in a sort of contingency plan around ensuring that the service is not compromised by a natural disaster, for example,” said Bryan.

He also pointed out that unhealthy habits among many Jamaicans are negatively impacting the country’s blood donation rates.

“We have to have more of our Jamaicans understand that their health status is their responsibility and that comes to the preventative message that we need to encourage persons to understand that in the reports that we get a significant portion of the persons who come through the door and are willing to donate have compromised health status.

“They are anaemic or they have some other type of condition that prevents them from donating, that is a major challenge that we face,” added Bryan.

In his address, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) representative to Jamaica Ian Stein expressed concern over the local and global decline in the number of blood donations taking place.

“Unfortunately, we have to recognise that as blood samples decline, mortality rates amongst patients with severe health conditions remain high because of the lack of access to the blood they desperately need,” said Stein.

He told the function that he is encouraged by the work done by the local government and stakeholders to improve blood donation rates in the country.

Stein promised that PAHO will continue its work with national programmes to improve access to blood across Jamaica.

“Once you start to donate you see the importance. It is one of the things that we do as a selfless act that contributes so substantively to essential services and to individuals. Today’s celebration is a call to action.

“We need to motivate more individuals to join the global movement of blood donation. We have to recognise that this is a challenge, a challenge that we must better take action on because without taking action, critical care does not take place,” added Stein.