On Thursday, January 29, The UWI Blood Donor Foundation (UWIBDF) held its Campus Blood Drive at the St Augustine Campus’s Learning Resource Centre (LRC) Greens. The blood drive was a joint initiative with the North West Regional Health Authority and the Rotary Club of St Augustine, who sponsored the drive, allowing healthy people to donate blood to those in need. Ms Melissa Senhouse, President of the Rotary Club of St Augustine, also donated blood.
Voluntary blood donation is a crucial exercise that can help many patients and even save lives. “A safe and reliable blood supply which is donated unconditionally and anonymously and used on a basis of clinical need would address the country’s needs,” wrote Dr Kenneth Charles, Senior Lecturer in Haematology at UWI St Augustine and Chair of UWIBDF, in the pages of UWI TODAY.
It would be used, he wrote, for “emergencies, planned surgeries, pregnancy complications, dialysis, oncology and haematology. It would improve the lives of patients who require repeated blood transfusions to stay alive and those, including foreign visitors, who have no relatives to donate blood on their behalf.” Based at the Department of Paraclinical Sciences (DPS) of the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FMS) at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope, UWIBDF was founded in 2011 to raise awareness about voluntary blood donation in the community and the efficient use of blood by medical professionals.
For those interested in more information on UWIBDF and its mission, visit them on Facebook at facebook.com/UWIBlood/, or Instagram at instagram.com/uwiblood
