[ 2014-09-27 ]

Accra: Fight For Survival, Trading Blood Booming At Korle Bu
It appears the high rate of unemployment is
pushing the poor and jobless youths to engage in
all kinds of weird and illegal means of making
money. One of such means is the zeal to donate
blood to patients who need them for various sums
of charges.

One of these persons who has been at the centre
stage of this weird business is one young man,
Eric Bimpong who always has a money-making
proposal: sell Your blood.

Bimpong spends his days outside schools, bars and
on the streets of poor neighbourhoods in Accra,
looking for teenagers and people in their 20s to
give blood and make some money for themselves.

Bimpong, though, is unconcerned about the impact
of his business. A man has to make a living, he
said as he sat outside a kiosk selling drinks and
meat pies to nurses and patients at Korle Bu.

"This country is hard. No work," he said.

More than 42% of Ghana's unemployed are aged 15 to
24 and just under a quarter of the Population of
26 million live below the poverty line of 3.60
cedi or $1 per day. As a result, a young jobless
folk like Bimpong finds a ready supply of
Volunteers at high schools, drinking spots and in
Market places.

"I go to places where I can see people who are not
into any serious work," he told this reporter.

The rate of 0.57 litres of blood is between 100
cedis (about $27) and 120 cedis (about $33).
Bimpong keeps 20 cedis (about $5) for Himself.

Commercial blood donors, as the authorities call
them at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, fill a
void in a country where blood is often in short
supply and cultural and religious beliefs
restricted some from donating. When a patient
needs blood and the blood banks are empty and
family and friends are not available or unwilling
to donate, the commercial donors step in for a
price.

"In this country, when some people go to the
hospital, they don't want their relatives to know
so they hide certain illnesses," Bimpong said
adding that "so they come to us."

Last July, the medical journal The Lancet
Published a study saying that one in almost 3,000
Blood donors in England carry hepatitis E and
Those small amounts of the virus had made it into
blood banks. But Bimpong shrugs off concerns about
safety. Laboratories should be responsible for
screening, he said, adding: "It's not up to me."
Inside the packed waiting room of the blood centre
at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, signs encourage
people to Donate every four months.

While their donations likely save the lives of
Bleeding patients, public health officials worry
sometimes that the donors may end up passing on
diseases like HIV or Hepatitis onto the
beneficiaries.

"It's abnormal! We don't really encourage this
kind of donation. Sometimes they don't even know
their blood Group,"
said Stephen Addai, Spokesman for Ghana's National
Blood Service (NBS).

According to him, keeping blood banks stocked
remained a big problem adding that the NBS usually
relied on students to donate the approximately 250
unit’s per-day of blood used in the southern
parts of the country, including Accra.

"We still run short, particularly when students go
on holiday that is why the NBS is always raising
alarms about blood shortages continuously on radio
stations and in newspapers, encouraging people to
come out and donate out of their own free will,"
he said.

He revealed that during a recent blood donation
event at the Accra Shopping Mall, the NBS targeted
about 1,500 donors, but quite sadly only just five
people donated in the end while the onlookers
outnumbered the donors.

"They are afraid of the syringe. They are not
aware of the importance of it because of certain
beliefs. They've heard stories of certain
diseases."

Chronic blood shortages have forced hospital Blood
centres to always hunt for blood. When a patient
arrives in need of blood and a Hospital has none
to offer, nearby clinics are contacted to see if
they might have some available and if the clinics
don't, family members are called to come and
donate.

"Friends will suffice, too - if they're willing.
If that fails, it Means that the victim will not
survive", Mr. Addai
said.

According to Addai, donated blood is tested for
HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis and donors are
asked if they've been sick with malaria. Despite
screening, there have been a number of cases
involving contaminated blood in other parts of the
world.

From the 1970s on wards, more than half a dozen
Countries, including Britain, France, Italy and
Japan, were hit by scandals over tainted blood for
Transfusion. The biggest scare was over
contamination by the HIV virus.

When a face becomes too familiar, it's likely that
person is a commercial donor, said Victoria
Atiapah, a nurse at the centre. "When you see them
the first time, they say they're relatives. But
when they come the second
time, third time, then you know," Atiapah said.
Anyone who tries to donate more often than the
recommended four months is turned away, she said.

A professor at the hematology department of the
University of Ghana, Gabriel Antwi, in an
interview said commercial blood donors made up
perhaps less than 10% of donors in Ghana. In
Nigeria the rate is between 30 and 60%. But
Ghana's rate of hepatitis, which is spread Through
blood, is about 15% and a worrying sign, he said,
estimating that about 10% of donors have the
virus.

Source - Maame Owusuaa

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