When a patient in Ghana is scheduled for surgery, childbirth, or emergency treatment, one familiar instruction often follows: “Please find someone to donate blood.”
In 2026, this routine request should trouble us. Access to safe blood should not depend on a patient’s personal network. It should be a public guarantee.
Ghana has made commendable progress in healthcare delivery over the years. Yet the continued reliance on “replacement donors” reveals a systemic gap: the absence of a fully viable, nationally coordinated blood banking system.
It is time to fix this.
How Blood Banking Works Elsewhere
In many countries, blood donation is organized around voluntary, non-remunerated donors rather than family replacement. Let’s look at the UK and the US for examples.
In the United Kingdom, the NHS Blood and Transplant centrally coordinates blood collection, testing, storage, and distribution.
Citizens donate voluntarily, often in response to regular public campaigns. Blood is distributed based on clinical need.
Similarly, in the United States, organizations such as the American Red Cross manage nationwide blood drives through partnerships with schools, churches, corporations, and community groups. Technology is used to track supply levels and mobilize donors when shortages arise.
The key features of these systems are:
Central coordination
Voluntary donation culture
Strong public education
Cold chain logistics
Transparent quality control
Can the Ghana Red Cross Be Empowered?
The Ghana Red Cross Society already has a nationwide presence and community trust. With the right mandate and funding, it could serve as a key partner, if not the operational backbone of a strengthened national blood system.
However, empowerment must go beyond goodwill. It would require:
Stable Government Funding. Blood banking cannot depend on sporadic donor support.
Legal and Regulatory Framework. Clear national policy assigning roles between the Ministry of Health, teaching hospitals, and the Red Cross.
Infrastructure Investment. Modern testing labs, cold storage facilities, and digital tracking systems.
Mobile Collection Units. Regularly scheduled blood drives in universities, churches, markets, and corporate institutions.
Some Reasons Why Ghana Still Relies on Replacement Donors/Challenges
Some Ghanaians fear that blood donation weakens the body or is spiritually risky. If you are healthy, you can donate blood without any adverse consequences.
Inadequate Logistics. Maintaining a cold chain across rural areas requires investment in storage and transportation.
Funding Constraints. Screening blood safely for infections is expensive. But we should be able to do it. There are already established protocols, and we need to purchase the equipment and follow the regulations.
Limited Public Campaigns. Blood donation is not consistently framed as a civic responsibility.
Data Gaps. Without real-time inventory systems, shortages become crisis-driven rather than proactively managed.
What Ghana Can Do Now
Shift from Replacement to Voluntary Donation. Gradually phase out the expectation that patients must supply donors.
Launch National Awareness Campaigns. Just as Ghana mobilizes for elections and national immunization days, blood donation should become a patriotic act.
Integrate Technology. Digital registries can send SMS alerts when certain blood types run low.
Corporate Partnerships. Large companies could adopt annual blood drives as part of Corporate Social Responsibility.
School and University Engagement. Make voluntary blood donation part of civic education programs. I remember as far back as my school days when some of my brave Secondary School mates would periodically donate blood at a local hospital. So, this is nothing new.
A functioning blood bank system reduces:
Central coordination
Voluntary donation culture
Strong public education
Cold chain logistics
Transparent quality control
Every canceled surgery due to unavailable blood is both a medical and economic loss. Investing in blood infrastructure is not charity; it is smart national planning.
Access to blood should not depend on whether I know anyone who can donate on my behalf. A mother in a rural district should have the same chance of survival during childbirth as someone in Accra who may find it relatively easier to find a blood donor.
The question is not whether Ghana can build a viable blood banking system. The question is whether we are willing to treat blood as a national security asset rather than a private burden.
If we can coordinate nationwide elections and build digital payment systems, surely, we can ensure that when a patient needs blood, the system provides it without asking them to find a donor first.
We must act with haste and resolve. No Ghanaian should be searching for blood on WhatsApp or asking family and friends for a donation the night before surgery.
We must remember that some individuals have blood types that are very difficult to match.
Source:
www.ghanaweb.com