St. John’s Grammar Students Donate Blood


Alfred Ofori (front) donates blood together with his classmates

The National Blood Service (NBS) of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and St. John’s Grammar Senior High School have paired to celebrate the school’s 60 th anniversary with blood donation to the hospital’s blood bank.

The donation was part of a bi-annual voluntary exercise between the school and the National Blood Service; and the current one was the first this year.

Sophia Mellis Blankson, Donor Recruitment Officer for the NBS at Korle-Bu, who had been involved in the programme for the past five years, explained that Ghana’s hospitals had been experiencing a shortage of donated blood, and one of the biggest obstacles the Service faces is that some potential donors are afraid of the syringes used in the process – a problem she claimed was being   addressed.

She implored people who express worry about the donation process to think of the benefits of the blood to those in need of it, stating that ‘the person you are saving may be your family member tomorrow.’

She lamented the present blood shortage saying, ‘If somebody dies, it should not be because of blood, as it is a potentially unlimited resource – a person donating cannot run out of blood, it will always be replenished by the body.’

Rev. Betty Baidoo, the chaplain of S t John’s Grammar, said that the purpose of the programme was to save lives as well as to teach the students to be good citizens by helping their individual communities in particular and the nation at large, in terms of charitable donations.

One student, Alfred Ofori, who donated blood for the first time through the  programme last year, said that his motivation for donating again this year was that he wanted to help those who needed him.

He said that people should not be afraid to donate blood because the process is not harmful; and that it is meant to save lives.

By Stephanie Miles

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