Be a Hero, Save Three Lives!
5 BLOOD DRIVES IN AUGUST
The Youth of Sai Prema Foundation embarked on yet another journey to collect some much needed “liquid love” - blood. At the request of the Fiji National Blood Services, the Youth decided to adhere to the plight prompted via a recent appeal by the Ministry of Health highlighting a nationwide shortage of blood at their blood banks because of heart surgeries being conducted by a visiting team from overseas.
Therefore, considering the need of the hour, the Youth went out of their way to stabilise levels of blood at the banks and organised blood drives at the following locations:
The strategy used this time around was to take the blood drive right to the people! This turned out to be the best possible recipe thus far as the number of pints collected speaks for itself. With 500+ potential lives saved, this not only raised the level of blood required for the surgeries, but also ensured that there would not be a situation where there was a shortage of blood when conducting the surgeries.
The above was only possible as some of the youth decided to sacrifice their University break, make themselves useful and conducted blood drive camps over three consecutive days.
The day started early for the youth who took on the challenge of coordinating and hosting the blood drive. Keeping the norm in mind, the youth also arranged for fresh fruit, sandwiches, biscuits and fruit juice for the donors who needed nourishment upon completion of their blood donation. While the medical professionals from the Fiji National Blood Services conducted everything, from registration of patients to screening of the patients, to conducting iron tests and down to the overall blood extraction, the youths decided to make themselves useful and encouraged people to donate blood by highlighting its need and benefits, especially to hesitant first time donors walking the busy streets of Tavua and Suva.
In addition, the youth took advantage of this opportunity and decided to have a chat with the donors and advise them of post-donation care, such as drinking lots of water and having a proper meal, avoiding any physical exercise for the next 24 hours, and so on. This was again acknowledged by the donors and the youth were commended for the “love and care” shown.
Overall, another opportunity to serve well taken by the youth of Sai Prema Foundation and yet another community service offering at Thy Lotus Feet, Sairam!
