The Winneba Local Prisons Service Directorate, in partnership with the Blood Unit of Trauma and Specialists Hospital, Winneba have organised health screening and blood donation exercises for the officers of the Service.

The exercise held at the Prisons Service forecourt in Winneba saw more than 40 officers of the Service voluntarily donate blood to replenish the hospital's blood bank.

ASP James Mensah, Public Relations Officer of the Winneba Prisons, in an interview, said the hospital was located in a strategic place with lots of referrals, accident and emergency cases, and blood in high demand, hence the donation.

“We realised that last year, the facility attended to about 3,000 accident cases, with about 1,500 of them needing blood, putting pressure on the blood unit.

“As part of our strategic relationship, and to give back to society, we decided to organise the exercise to help restock the blood bank for emergencies,” he indicated.

Nana Emmanuel Donsu, head of the Blood Bank Unit of the Trauma and Specialist Hospital, Winneba, who led a team from the hospital for the exercise, stated that the hospital was very grateful to the authorities of the Effutu Directorate of the Ghana Prisons Services for partnering with them to meet their expectations.

He also expressed his appreciation to the officers for voluntarily donating to the hospital’s blood bank to handle emergency cases, among others.

“God bless you; we are looking forward to strengthening the ties between both institutions for further advancement of the nation’s growth.”

He mentioned that among those highly requiring blood transfusions included expectant mothers, people with severe anaemia cases and people who must go through surgical procedures, among others.

“All these services have a lot of demand on the blood bank, and as a major referral Hospital, we need constant refilling, and so we are appealing to various stakeholders to come on board and support the blood bank to restock its reserve, so that we can readily serve the vulnerable who need our services,” he added.