Qatar University (QU) marked World Blood Donor Day on 14 June, to shed light on the importance of donating blood and to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and to appreciate the big role that the donors play in health system.
In this context, several QU professors shared their opinions about the benefit of donating the blood.
Mr. Tameem Hadwan, Teaching Assistant of Biomedical, commented on QU’s role in raising the awareness of donating blood. He said, “The University organized many events and campaigns for donating blood because of the importance of donating blood to the health of the individual and society. These events varied between blood donation campaigns in coordination with Hamad Medical Corporation represented by the Blood Donation Center. This event included male and female students and all university employees, also a lot of training workshops organized by the Medical Vital Department on the importance and how to donate blood.”
“According to the latest statistics, there are people who need at least one component of blood every three seconds in the world. Its shows the urgent need for blood and the need to provide large quantities of it, which will only be available by encouraging and educating individuals to donate blood on a permanent and continuous basis. It is not possible to guarantee the availability of a permanent stock of blood to meet any emergency and cover the urgent need in all hospitals and state facilities, except through organized and continuous donation campaigns.” Dr. Tamim adds.
Dr. Hassan A. Rathore, Associate Professor, College of Pharmacy said, “The most important benefit a donor of blood gains is that donation of 350-500ml blood would increase erythropoiesis in the donor. This means new Red Blood Cells will form to replace the donated oxygen carrying cells of the donor. Every year hundreds and thousands of people are in need of packed cells, plasma, platelets or whole blood for reasons that include emergency situations, surgeries, hereditary blood diseases like Thalassemia and Sickle Cell anemia. If such patients do not receive the donated blood in time, they can lose their life.”
Dr. Stephanie Atweh, Teaching Assistant, College of Pharmacy, said “With the advancement of medicine and opening of new hospitals and medical centers, the ever-increasing demand for blood supplies has created a huge need for blood donation volunteers both in Qatar and around the world. Many of the clinical and surgical activities that demand blood transfusion support including treatment of severe anemia, bone marrow transplantation, other organ transplants such as liver and kidney transplants, and open-heart surgeries are being done in Qatar. This confirms the importance of having more people from the public volunteer from an early stage to become involved in blood donation and offer to volunteer when needed. We at Qatar University College of Pharmacy encourage our students to join these national efforts since being a blood donor is crucial to saving lives. Finally, I would like to echo the slogan for this year’s World Blood Donor Day to say, “Give blood and keep the world-beating”.
Source: QATAR UNIVERSITY