The average daily demand of blood in Davao City is 80 blood bags but the Red Cross Davao City Chapter can only provide in average of 30 blood bags.
“I think DOH Blood center is also is facing this challenge of blood shortage, not only Red Cross,” said Gwen Clarisse Cachuela, Red Cross Davao City Chapter Service Representative Fund Generation on August 2, Wednesday.
Cachuela said ideally a person can donate 400 cc of blood. But there are factors that needed to be considered before a person could donate blood such as the hemoglobin level.
The person should have an adequate rest and sleep and should not have taken alcohol or medication 24-hrs prior to the blood donation. The person should have eaten prior to the donation and drunk plenty of water or juice. People with tattoo can actually donate blood that is after a year of having that tattoo. “There is only period of time where in those people can’t donate but after a year they can if they pass the screening,” said Cachuela
At present the Red Cross Davao Chapter has been conducting blood donation promotion and public education in order to encourage people to donate blood.
Every day the Red Cross Davao Chapter also conducts bloodletting activity in different companies around the city. And the average number of blood bag that are collected in the company is 30 blood bags. The companies who initiates blood donation must write a letter and should be 1 month prior the set date. This is necessary because there are also other companies who would like to conduct a bloodletting activity.
“There are times that we cater to two companies or two barangays a day,” said Cachuela..
The bloodletting activity at Abreeza Mall of Davao in Partnership of ABS-CBN and Phoenix was one of the biggest bloodletting activity they had and were able to collect 500 blood bags on that event. As stated by Cachuela these mass donation events are divided quarterly per year so that there will be an equal distribution of the amount of blood bags.
