Lundie
DR. LUNDIE Richards, director of the National Blood Transfusion Services, has bemoaned the small turnout at the second of a series of blood drives aimed at replenishing blood and blood products lost during Hurricane Ivan.
The blood drive series is an initiative of the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the Jamaica Money Market Brokers (JMMB). Dr. Richards said the first drive, which took place at the JMMB head office on September 23, was relatively successful. The blood drive series will be taking place at JMMB locations islandwide.
"It didn't go too badly. We managed to get about 35 units of blood. We would have loved to have got more, but this is still reasonable," he said.
Dr. Richards noted that in contrast to this, the second drive held last Tuesday in Portmore, was extremely disappointing.
"The turnout was very poor. We managed to get less than 20 units of blood... it was very poor," he said.
GREATER TURNOUT
In light of the disappointing turnout, Dr. Richards said his team, along with representatives of JMMB, will be meeting to come up with new strategies in order to get a greater turnout for the next drive, the location and date of which will be announced to the public soon.
He encouraged Jamaicans to make every effort to support the blood drives, as during Hurricane Ivan, the Blood Bank lost over 100 pints of blood and 130 units of blood products.
