Posted by Haagen P. Cumlet

Rotary International's president 2008-09, Dong Kurn Lee, has called on Rotarians to open their eyes to the needs of children in communities near and far. "Children die not because nobody can help them, but because too often, nobody does," he says. Global Network for Blood Donation, a Rotarian Action Group takes up the challenge. Make Dreams Real, 2008-09 theme by RI President  Dong Kurn Lee.

Annually, thousands and thousands of infant children  die of severe Malaria anaemia due to both late submission and, in particular, the absence of or limited access to safe blood for transfusion.

Annually, thousands and thousands of newborn children die of hemolytic disease due to the absence of or poor access to preventive human immunoglobulin anti-Rhesus D and no possibilities for exchange transfusion needed to rescue them.

Annually, thousands and thousands of young hemophiliacs and thalassaemia patients develop severe morbidity and eventually die due to the absence of or limited access to safe blood products, available and affordable.

By PDG Charles Kurtzman, Assistant General Coordinator 2008-09 Health and Hunger Resource Group, Charter President of Global Network for Blood donation, a Rotarian Action Group;  Merlyn Sayers, MD, PhD Director, Global Network for Blood Donation; and Cees Smit Sibinga, MD, PhD, FRCP Edin, FRCPath, Global Network for Blood Donation.

                   Today, your hour can save a child's life.

What can be more harrowing than the helplessness of a sick child and the despair of the youngster's parents? Who but someone with a heart of stone would not want to reach out with sympathy, encouragement, and the promise of help?

There is an urgent and agonizing reality to the fact that, worldwide, each day 30,000 children die before reaching five years old.  This grim truth is felt nowhere more keenly than in developing countries.  In parts of Africa, for example, anemia casts an awful shadow on the lives of the young. This debilitating condition is the most common disorder in hospital patients and six in ten youngsters under three are anemic. Severely anemic children die: mortality can be 30 percent. As compelling as statistics are, they tend to both reduce a very human tragedy to mere numbers and also serve as a screen behind which we can stand, shielded from the reality and indifferent to the appeals for help.

But we can help, dramatically. In countries where famine, civil disorder, and poverty stalk the lives of so many, malaria is the scourge accounting for anemia.  While dramatic advances are being made in reducing the risk of malaria, the treatment of the disease's most life threatening complication, anemia, at best lags far behind, at worst is not available at all. If anemic children are to be rescued from death by an otherwise treatable disease, they need safe, available and prompt blood transfusions.  Those youngsters, and their desperate parents, know that transfusion is a dream.

In the developed world, transfusions for children present a different challenge. While the prevailing rate is lower for diseases whose successful treatment depends on a community blood supply, some diseases need an intensity of support that can severely, and frequently, test the adequacy of a hospital's inventory. Take leukemia for example.

This grim disease is the commonest childhood cancer. Although encouraging progress has been made in treatment with powerful drugs and marrow transplant, neither of these remedies could even be contemplated without a blood bank replete with blood and the sophisticated derivatives that are prepared from volunteer blood donations.

A youngster with leukemia can need the unselfish support of as many as 100 donors. Physicians know that communities are exceptional when they can promise the consistent dedication of enough blood donors to ensure the success of childhood cancer treatment programs.

Rotarians are models for just that consistency and dedication.  Worldwide, Rotarians have made transfusion possible, they have given hope and strength to the vulnerable, they make dreams real - right in their own communities.

Rotarians roll up their sleeves and supply more than 1% of the world's blood supply.  Rotary Clubs in over 60% of our districts work with their local blood banks to help assure supply.  Quietly, we've helped save millions of lives - and the need continues.

What can you do?  Donate blood at your community blood center.  Take a friend. Donate on a regular schedule. Volunteer to help. Engage your club members.   Your hour can save a child's life.

To help at home, call your community blood center.

Things You Can Do

  • Donate Blood regularly. Take a friend.   Call your community blood center for an appointment.
  • Volunteer to help your community blood center.
  • Use your influence. Help your community blood center access schools, workplaces, places of worship. 
  • Organize a Blood Drive (also called a Blood Donation Camp in some areas).
  • Challenge other Rotary Clubs / organizations.  See the Governors' Challenge Blood Drive Handbook at www.ourblooddrive.org for ideas, plans, and materials.
  • Start a Club 25 program in your community.
  • A growing number of countries have formed Club 25 or Pledge 25 programs for young voluntary blood donors who make a commitment or 'pledge' to donate blood regularly to maintain positive, healthy lifestyles. Contact Diane DeConing at  deconing75@hotmail.com
  • Celebrate World Blood Donor Day on June14 at your Rotary meeting.  Acknowledge those who donate regularly.
  • Help redeploy equipment from your community blood center or hospital.  Most "prior generation" equipment is the stuff of dreams in the developing world.

The GNBD works with MediSend to refurbish specific blood bank, laboratory and hospital equipment, train biomedical equipment technicians from developing countries and deploy appropriate groupings of equipment.  US Rotary Clubs work with their local blood centers and hospitals to get the equipment to MediSend in Dallas, Texas.  Note: only specific items for which parts and supplies are available on a long-term basis are suitable candidates. www.MediSend.org

Liaison to MediSend, assistance to US Rotary Clubs wishing to ship to MediSend, contact George Elking, GJElking@aol.com

  • Encourage your local blood center to develop a "sister" relation with another blood center in a foreign county.

Sugested links:

AABB Transfusion Medicine www.aabb.org

America's Blood Centers www.americasblood.org

American Red Cross www.redcross.org

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies  www.ifrc.org/what/health

Safe Blood For Africa  www.safebloodforafrica.org

World Blood Donor Day (WBDD)

World Health Organization www.who.org

Click here to continue on to the WHO site: Millions of lives are saved each year through blood transfusion,

... and click here to continue on to WHO's health report 2007 - A safer future: global public health security in the 21st century.

The International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations www.fiods.org

How the Global Network for Blood Donation help you with your project:

Our website www.ourblooddrive.org has a host of articles, guidebooks, and links to individuals and organizations who share our common support for blood donation and transfusion medicine.

Rotarians with specific expertise have offered their help advising others. Contact  info@ourblooddrive.org

To join The Global Network for Blood Donation send the following information to info@ourblooddrive.org

  • First name, Badge name (nickname), 
  • Last name, 
  • Rotary Club / Rotaract Club,
  • Spouse or Friend (for non-Rotary affiliated),
  • District,
  • Full Address including country ,
  • E-mail, telephone. 

There is no fee or other obligation.

 

Send your comment to: editor@ourblooddrive.org