Encumbered by the pressure from lack of blood ‘donations’ from Kenya; which was anyways being sold through the black market, a group of doctors in war-torn Somalia have decided to put up a blood bank.
According to Reuters news service Dr. Ahmed Abdikadir Mohamed’s Benadir Blood Service seeks to change the narrative and stop deaths from blood loss in bomb-ridden Somalia.
He got the idea from 2017 after seeing 500 people die helplessly from a bomb blast.
Benadir Blood Service was opened in October 2018, as Somalia’s only public blood bank since 1991.
The bank, run by a team of 20 volunteer doctors, nurses, and lab technicians, delivers life-saving donations to most Mogadishu hospitals.
“We are happy to work at this blood bank…the country has no other blood bank and there is a dire need,” said 32-year-old Mohamed. While private hospitals have their own small banks, Benadir is the only public one.
“Those who die due to lack of blood are more than those who are killed by bullets,” he estimates.
Lack of access to safe blood is a major cause of maternal death. Each year, 5,000 Somali women die from childbirth complications, according to 2017 data from the United Nations Children’s Fund, the latest year for which data was available. That same year, there were 740 terror-related deaths, according to the Global Terrorism Index.
In 2020, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations began investigations on how blood donated in Kenya was being sold in Somalia. Officers of the Kenya National Blood Transfusion Service (KNBTS) believed to be part of a cartel was allegedly been siphoning blood donated by Kenyans and selling it in Somalia. The result of the investigations still remain unclear, the authorities as usual went mum.
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In addition to pregnant women and victims of violence, recipients of donated blood include people with chronic disease.
“I have had kidney problems for a long time… my kidneys undergo dialysis. This place helps me… they give me free blood. Thank God,” Moalim Rage Ali Irole told Reuters.
One challenge is convincing people to donate. Some of the stigma around donation decreased in the wake of the Oct. 2017 bombings when the government called on citizens to donate, but misconceptions remain, said Mohamed.
One man who brought his sick mother told Mohamed that he would die if he donated blood.
“This is something strange within the community; they think one will die if one donates,” said Mohamed. But the team explained its safety and eventually convinced him to donate.
But for 20-year-old Mohamed Haji Hussein, donating has become a source of pride.
“I donate my blood for the Somalis… I understand there is lack of blood: that is why I donate it. To save people,” he told Reuters.
Mohamed said other challenges include equipment shortages and scraping together the $700 monthly operating fees.
The bank stores about 100 units of blood. One unit can save up to three lives, according to WHO.
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