“Give your brethen blood as I have given you mine”
Felix Basiime (April 1, 2010, http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Health%20&%20Living/-/689846/890430/-/format/xhtml/-/5sg96y/-/index.html)
“I was checked and found anaemic. I needed blood,” recalls Ms Munyarubega. After the blood transfusion, she got her good health back and was discharged. Later, she delivered normally.
Prior to seeing the benefits of donating blood, she had in the past had a burning urge to donate blood, but feared that she might die or get weak after the exercise.
“I was challenged to donate blood. But I kept fearing that I would get weak and die,” Ms Munyarubega says.
She is not alone; so many people in the communities in Uganda nurse the same feelings, a thing that has for many years forced Red Cross to recruit blood donors from schools, tertiary institutions, security forces and companies because they get a luke warm reception from the communities.
When schools close, regional blood banks countrywide run out of blood or operate on little capacity causing a number of deaths of treatable sicknesses especially among children and pregnant mothers.
“When schools close and we go to the communities, people especially the elderly reason that they don’t feed well so they can’t donate blood. We set up tents during donation week in towns but we get very few people turning up, but in church we have been overwhelmed,” says Mr Emmanuel Mugarura, the Western Regional Blood Donor Recruitment Officer.
Mugarura says, his team was overwhelmed on March 13, 2010 when they got over 109 units of blood at Mbarara Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church after a sermon by church Pastor, Mr Abel Munyarubega.
This was after Red Cross teamed up with the church and organised a blood donation day and the church mobilised its members. From the pulpit, Pastor Munyarubega based his sermon on the book of Mathew 25: 31-40 and James 2: 14-17 and urged the flock, “Don’t sit here in church and forget the sick out there, we can’t give blood to everyone but the few pints of blood you will give will save daughters and sons of God somewhere.”
He added, “My wife Jovanice (Munyarubega) was saved by a blood transfusion, and so have many others, don’t be selfish.”
Mrs Munyarubega and others in the congregation were persuaded by the sermon and went straight to donate blood outside the church where a team of five officials from Red Cross and Blood Bank were waiting.
“Since I was rescued by a blood transfusion, I remained with a debt to pay but feared until I heard a good sermon in church about donating blood and helping the needy,” Mrs Munyarubega said.
She vowed, “From today on, I will always donate blood because the exercise I feared before I have found easy and quick and I have known all the reasons why I should donate blood.”
Pastor Munyarubega later said, “As a church, we found it necessary to save life. We sat in a church board and resolved to invite the Blood Bank officials, our target was that at least each member donates and it was successful even the children cried, because they wanted to donate but were barred by age.”
The blood donation age bracket is 17-45 and one must be above 45kg in weight.
Pastor Munyarubega adds, “We heard that the country was about to import blood due to the blood crisis and we found this as a challenge for us as Christians.”
Red Cross chairman in Mbarara, Mr Patrick Webaale says, “This is the first blood donation we have had from an organised church. We have been getting blood mainly from schools and other community members, but we were overwhelmed by this church. We appeal to other churches to do the same because the need for blood in hospitals is high especially in the rain seasons (when malaria cases are many).”
“We expected 40 units from this church because we have never got anything above that in a day when we go out in the communities, but we got more than 100 at once,” says Mugarura. “We have been partnering with schools and companies but the SDA church has taught us a good lesson, from now we shall target the churches and mosques, an area we had neglected.”
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