SIBU: Malaysian Red Crescent Society (MRCS) Sibu District will continue to advocate for voluntary blood donation as this is the most effective way to stock up on the Sibu Hospital blood bank.
Speaking at MRCS National Blood Donation campaign yesterday, organising chairperson of Blood Donor Recruitment sub-committee, MRCS Sibu District, Dr Ngian Hie Ung said that it is difficult for people to go directly to the hospital blood bank to donate blood.
“Blood procurement is still very much dependent on blood donation campaign which constitutes 73 per cent of blood procured instead of the hospital blood bank,” said Dr Ngian who is also the Sibu Hospital director.
She said in 2018, a total of 82 organisations were involved in such campaign, 56 per cent of which organised at least twice per year. This is an improvement of 46.2 per cent as compared to 2017.
In 2017, there were 78 organisations involved in a blood donation campaign which was an increase from 71 in 2016.
She added that last year, a total of 8,155 pints of blood were procured as compared to 7,485 pints in the previous year.
The majority of the donors are Chinese at 68.3 per cent, followed by Malay (11.3 per cent), Iban (10 per cent) and Melanau (5.7 per cent).
“Around 81 per cent of blood is donated by regular donors as per previous three years. This year, we are seeing a similar pattern,” she envisaged.
Despite the amount collected, she said it was still inadequate for the Sibu district and thus, more procurement is needed.
MRCS national vice chairman Mohamad Rafiai Mokhtar who officiated at the function said every hospital nationwide needs 2,000 packs of blood daily to meet patients’ demand.
“The Health Ministry reported that 70 per cent are regular donors for the past five years. In 2018, a total of 694,473 packs of blood were collected nationwide, of which 228,145 packs were from new donors,” he said.
The majority of recipients were women in labour, people with genetic disorder and those with low hemoglobin count and immunodeficiency.
Meanwhile, Sarawak emerged champion at the 2018 national level blood donation campaign with a total of 39,654 pints of blood collected.
Kuching won the district level campaign with 22,911 pints while the Youth section of the Federation of Kuching and Samarahan Division Chinese Association won the private sector category with 2,682 pints.
For the individual category, the winner was Ismail Brahim who have donated 141 pints of his blood.
