Red Sunday 2022 blood donation campaign set to open

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – Organisers
expect to collect 45,000 – 50,000 blood units on Chu Nhat Do 2022 (Red
Sunday), a that will officially open at the People’s
Police Academy in Hanoi on January 16.

The annual event will be organised
by Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper, the National Committee for
Traffic Safety, and the National Institute of Haematology and Blood
Transfusions (NIHBT), in more than 40 provinces and cities across the country.

It aims to handle the shortage
of blood for emergency and treatment periods during and after the Tet
(Lunar New Year) holiday.  

Le Xuan Son, Editor-in-Chief
of Tien Phong newspaper, head of the organising committee,
said that 2022 would be much more difficult due to the pandemic situation,
but Tien Phong newspaper and its companions would do their
best for the sake of patient life, as with the past 13 Red Sunday
campaigns.

“We will have to change the way of
organisation, and be faster and more flexible, instead of organising large,
crowded voluntary blood donation events. We will also organise more blood
donation points on a smaller scale in efforts to reach the target of collecting
45,000 – 50,000 blood units,” said Son.

Dr. Bach Quoc Khanh, Director of the
National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, said NIBHT usually
received 30,000 units of blood every month to supply to hospitals in the
north. However, the hospital had recently received only 25,000 to 28,000
units of blood in the period near the Lunar New Year.

“The closer Tet comes, the more
the health sector and patients worry about blood shortages. The NIHBT needs at
least 50,000 blood units in the first two months of the year 2022,” he
said.

However, with the blood donation
schedules already in place, we are still short of 15,000 units of blood and
2,000 platelet units. Just one more unit of blood, or one more unit of platelet
while Tet is approaching is a valuable lifesaver for the patient.”

In 2021, due to the pandemic, many
blood donation events were cancelled, and the 2021 festival
mobilised more than 61,000 blood units in 43 provinces and cities, compared to
96 blood units collected at the first Red Sunday in 2009.

Last year, the health sector
received more than 1.3 million blood units donated from voluntary donors
across the country./.