MTN Ghana organises 2016 Valentine's Day blood donation to stock bank (video)

Enoch Darfah Frimpong Feb - 12 - 2016 , 11:54 2 minutes read

The annual blood donation exercise organised by MTN Ghana Foundation, dubbed ‘Save a Life" campaign, has taken place in Accra.

This year’s exercise, the fifth in a series, forms part of an annual exercise instituted by the telecoms company to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

According to Mrs Cynthia Lumor, Executive Director of the MTN Ghana Foundation, the move was part of showing love to family and friends on Valentine’s Day by “giving the gift of life to those in need.”

Watch a video of the donation exercise in Accra here {youtube}rw8YSsDJ6fQ{/youtube}

The target of this year's exercise was to collect 1200 pints from nine bleeding centres in Accra, Cape Coast, Sekondi, Takoradi, Tarkwa, Kumasi, Asante Mampong, Tamale and Bolga.

Last year, the foundation set out to collect 700 pints of blood and with the support of volunteers and partners it was able to exceed that target and collected 1,135 pints across the country, Mrs Lumor said.

Mrs Lumor (pictured above) addressing the gathering at the donation ceremony at the MTN head office in Accra said in the last five years that the company has been organizing similar exercises, a total of 2000 pints of blood has been donated for various medical facilities across the country.

Mrs Lumor expressed the hope that the blood collected will go a long way to supplement the needs of the selected blood banks.

“Most importantly it is our hope that with the continued help of all our volunteers, Ghana will achieve the World Health Organisation (WHO) goal of obtaining 100% voluntary and unpaid blood donation by 2020," she said.

Partners for the project includes the National Blood Bank and the blood banks of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Effia Nkwanta Hospital in Takoradi, Tamale Teaching Hospital, Bolga Regional Hospital and Cape Coast Regional Hospital