World Leukemia Day: Poverty, unemployment reasons for inadequate blood donation — NGO

The Timilehin Leukemia Foundation (TLF), an NGO, on Thursday described poverty, unemployment, and unfavorable economic situations as factors responsible for inadequate blood donation among Nigerians.

The Founder of TLF, Mrs. Janet Oyedele, made the assertion in Lagos, at a free blood donation exercise held at the Mechanic and Spare Parts Village, Agindingbi, Ikeja.

The free blood donation exercise was held to mark the 2021 World Leukaemia Day with the theme “Each One, Each Ten.

NAN reports that every Sept.4 has been declared as World Leukaemia Day and the 2020 report says Leukaemia, a type of cancer, has caused over 300,000 deaths across the world.

The report also said that over 437,000 people across the world are diagnosed with leukemia each year, which is over 1,000 people every day.

Oyedele noted that more Nigerians would have loved to participate in the exercise but the economic hardship had made people not to be interested in such a life-saving exercise.

“One of the major factors mitigating against the interest of people in donating blood is poverty. The high rate of poverty among Nigerians is alarming and makes it difficult to approach them.

“Someone who is not sure of food will not be willing to donate blood, how can we approach such a person to donate his blood? Another factor is unemployment.

“Many don’t earn good salaries to take care of themselves or sometimes their meager salaries are not paid promptly, such individuals will see blood donations as something big.

“Those people we refer to as average Nigerians are the ones in the good numbers to donate blood but unfortunately, they are the ones impoverish and malnourish to donate blood,” she said.

Oyedele said that in spite of the challenges of having people donate blood, the NGO is on the mission of campaign to have about one million Nigerians donate their blood freely.

“For us in TLF, we want to embark on this life-saving exercise which is blood donation, with a target to sign up one million Nigerians for blood donations.

“We want to achieve this so that many Nigerians can walk into our hospital and get the blood free of charge, this is achievable with good support from government and private organizations.

“In the hospital, a pint of blood goes for N25,000, and for a leukemia patient, he needs about two to three pants of blood in a day, how can they afford this without adequate blood?

“We want to encourage all Nigerians to please help save the lives of many, not the leukemia patients alone but all those that are in need of blood, the critically ill patients in our hospitals,” she said.

Oyedele called on private organizations to support life-saving exercises as they are supporting other reality shows.

“We are appealing to our private organizations to also look into the way of life-saving exercise like free blood donation and support it as they are supporting the reality shows like “Big Brother Naija.

“We cannot leave all on the table of the government to do; we all have a responsibility as citizens to also care for ourselves and not waste money on shows that have no impact in the lives of the citizens.

“We also want to appeal to the government as a matter of urgency to help resolve the doctor’s strike so that our hospitals can be functional again. Some of us have nowhere to go.

“The health sector should be one of the priorities of the government, their salaries and entitlement must be paid as at when due because health workers are lifesavers of the country,” she said.

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One of the brands support of the TLF free blood donation exercise, Fidson Pharmaceutical, makers of Ferobin Blood tonic, through its Brand Manager, Over-the-Counter Products, Tunde Balogun, urged Nigerians to support the initiative.

“We need to support a life-saving cause like this because this is what our conglomerate stands for, and we also want to encourage Nigerians to donate blood freely.

“We also want the government to adequately strengthen the health sector by supporting public health in terms of adequate infrastructure, access to medical treatment, and address the frequent strike by the doctors.

“It is only healthy citizens that can be productive to the economy,” he said.

NAN reports that many people turned up for the blood donation exercise.