The Acting Director and head medical laboratory department, Military Hospital Port Harcourt, Major Goodluck Nwagbara, has stressed that regular donation of blood prevents heart attack and other health related diseases.
He made this known in his office at the military hospital, Port Harcourt while interacting with newsmen. Nwagbara said that apart from the prevention of heart disease, regular donation of blood also improves and elongates someone’s life span.
While insisting that the rumour making the rounds that regular donation of blood shortens life span is not true, he maintained that if it does, he would not have been a donor, adding that, he has been donating regularly with members of his staff who had equally received various awards for lifetime donation.
Mr. Nwagbara who is also a trained Labs Scientist disclosed that he equally donated during the last blood donor day celebrated in the country. He revealed that a study had been conducted in USA and Europe which clearly shows that those who donate blood regularly lives longer than those who do not.
According to him, “whether you donate blood or not, after 120 days the red blood cell must be destroyed and when it is destroyed, the iron content will not leave your body, its stored in the system and when the iron is accumulated for a longtime, it may lead to some health hazard which include liver disease, cardiac problems amongst others, that is why the risk of having heart attack and cardiac related disease in those that donate blood regularly is 33% lower than those that do not donate”. He however enjoined the people to volunteer as donors in order to have a healthy heart and healthy liver.
He said even though frequent blood donation tend to make people live longer that it does not apply to everybody, especially those that have a bad lifestyle. Nwagbara listed smokers, commercial sex workers, both men and women, drug addicts and alcoholic people as the group of people not allowed to donate because of their high risk of getting infections. He stated that the National Centre of blood donation service will stop at nothing than to ensure every blood that is given out is free from all kinds of infection.
Major Goodluck informed that for anybody to donate blood in their centre (military hospital) he or she must pass through both clinical and laboratory screening. He also said all the blood received from the field is subjected to screening and anyone that fails short are removed and buried immediately with the aim of ensuring that the blood is free from infections.
According to him, Port Harcourt Military Hospital blood transfusion centre is one of the best, noting that all blood screening is being done with the world health transfusion method. He wondered that government policies are not very effective on the issue of blood transfusion, stressing that every screening would have passed through a centralized centre, like the national blood transfusion centre or the military hospital transfusion centre to show that it has gone through a certified method before it can be given to people. He also condemned commercial screening centres for carrying out the practice without due regard to the acceptable standards.
