Oke-Ona Egba Rotary Club in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State, District 9110, Nigeria, has held its first blood drive. During two days in October, Rotarians, Rotaractors and medical staffers secured 133 pints of donor blood. The venue of the blood drive was Moshood Abiola Polythenics (MAPOLY), a Polythenics with more than 10,000 students. - Our ultimate aim is to form a voluntary blood donor association in Ogun State, says Club President Hassan Adelakun, who is a medical doctor at a major hospital in the state capital.
The organizing Rotary club was supported by the Rotaract Club of Oke-Ona Egba, Rotaract Club of Mapoly, the National Blood Transfusion Services of Ogun State, the Federal Medical Centre Abeokuta (a tertiary health institution) and the management of the Moshood Abiola Polythenics. The recipient of the donor blood was the Federal Medical Centre Abeokuta.
The day before the blood drive, a live blood donation was shown on the state owned Gateway Television, and during the half hour long program appeals were made to attract voluntary blood donors. A woman Rotaractor donated blood live on the television. "This was made to dispel rumours that women can not donate blood," Club President Hassan Adelakun tells GNBD. The Gateway station has the largest number of TV viewers in Ogun State.
Immediately afterwards, the campaign moved to Moshood Abiola Polythenics where leaflets on voluntary blood donation were distributed. - We were welcomed and encouraged by the Directorate of Student Affairs, The Registrar and ultimately by the Rector of the institution, Hassan Adelakun says.
The first day of the blood drive, 97 pints of blood were collected, and 35 pints were collected the next day. (A pint is about half a litre). And for Club President Hassan Adelakun, who demonstrated how to donate blood to the student at the first day of the blood donation drive, the event became his tenth blood donation.
"Our plan is to repeat the blood donation drive at another institution, in cooperation with the National Blood Transfusion Services of Ogun State. Next time the beneficiary of the donor blood will be GeneralHospital Ijaye Abeokuta, which is a state owned secondary health institution," Hassan Adelakun says. He is the chairman of the Blood Donation Committee in charge of the blood drives, of which he hopes to organize three during his year, 2009-10, as President of Rotary Oke-Ona Egba Rotary Club.
Next time around, yet another of the Rotary clubs in the capital of Abeokuta will join the blood drive organizers.
Nigeria is one of many countries without a tradition for voluntary blood donation, and where various culturally motivated barriers have to be addressed in order to change things.
As incoming club president, Dr. Hassan Adelakun became inspired to start Rotary blood drives in his hometown of Abeokuta when attending the Rotary International's convention 2009 in Birmingham, England. At the convention, he discussed blood donation with people at the blood donor booth, hosted by Global Network for Blood Donation, a Rotarian Action Group (GNBD), and he attended the GNBD's symposium on non-remunerated blood donation.
The Rotarian endeavour of forming an Ogun State-wide blood donor association is now playing an inspirational role for the International Federation of Blood Donor Organization (FIODS) to work for a unified blood donor federation for all of Nigeria. The Federal Republic of Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with an estimated 2009 population of 154,729,000 inhabitants.
In the GNBD Annual Report to Rotary International Secretary General, the blood drive projects of Rotary Oke-Ona Egba Rotary Club in Abeokuta have been named the GNBD "success story of the year".
Footnotes:
Club President Dr. Hassan Adelakun can be contacted by e-mail to adelakus@hotmail.com or by the phone +234 803 831 0057.
Go to photo journals for pictures from the blood drive event in Abeokuta.
See also the related articles Blood drives and a blood donor organization, posted at this website Sept. 12, 2009, Safe Blood Africa Project, posted Aug. 10, 2008, and the GNBD Annual Report 2008-09 (to be found under DOWNLOADS).
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