The Kisumu Regional Blood Transfusion Center has partnered with Kenya Red Cross Society to restock the dwindling blood levels in the Regional blood bank.
The two partners pitched tent on Wednesday at Kisumu Sports Ground where they commissioned a nation wide blood collection drive of 10,000 pints of blood.
Kisumu County Red Cross Coordinator Elizabeth Aballa said that the move will help in maintaining safe blood levels at the blood bank besides also being a strategy of ensuring heightened preparedness in-case a disaster that required blood transfusion struck the region.
Aballa urged members of the public to embrace blood donation during the exercise which was christened as "show your love, donate blood".
She said they targeted collecting 800 pints of blood during the exercise which will see more more than 1 million patients benefit.
Elizabeth Odhiambo, the Officer in-charge of the Kisumu blood bank said the facility supplies blood to Kisumu, Kisii, Siaya, Vihiga, Kakamega and Homabay counties and that a significant drop of blood levels could result to a disaster for patients in need of blood in the six counties.
Odhiambo, however, hinted that learning institutions in the county contributed to the highest number of blood donors who have helped maintain safe levels of the life saving product in the bank.
The closure of schools late last year, she said had dealt a blow to the collection of blood disclosing that they resorted to seeking for it from faith based organizations like churches.
This, she said occurred when the facility needed blood to save lives of people who were injured during the prolonged electioneering period that saw violence erupt in parts of the western region of the country.
“The facility only had a reservoir of 200 pints of blood at the end of October 2017 which was not enough to serve the populace,’’ said Odhiambo.
She hinted that the digital blood grouping machines which the government bought for the facility have hastened the process of screening and classifying blood as they screen close to 175 sample of blood in 3-4 hrs.
The old and manual method of examining blood she said took up-to between 3 days to screen a similar number of blood samples.
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