High consumption of greens increases one’s haemoglobin level in the body, Ms. Doris Kusima Baiden, Medical Laboratory Scientist in Charge of the Blood Bank at the International Maritime Hospital (IMaH) in Tema, advised.
“Eating foods made of turkey berries, kontomire, and more vegetables is healthy,” she noted.
She however advised persons with low haemoglobin levels (HB), to visit the health facility for immediate treatment as it could result in other complications.
Ms. Baiden was addressing issues related to blood donation at the weekly “Your Health”! Our Collective Responsibility! A Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy
Supported by Mr. Robert Tetteh Djimajor, also a IMaH Biomedical Laboratory Scientist, she added that blood was a necessity for human survival and when donated, could save at least five people in an emergency stage.
“The blood donation exercise takes about 5–10 minutes to complete the donation process,” she noted.
Mrs. Baiden added that it was advisable to donate blood at least three times a year as it took 6–12 weeks for the red cells to mature well again to replace the red cells that were lost during the donation process.
In addition, she highlighted that when a donor doesn’t wait for the red cells to mature, he or she was at risk. The blood donated by a donor might have a fine HB level, but the richness of that blood might not help, leading to your collapse or dizziness.
In most cases, donors’ haemoglobin levels are not up or a quickly drop below the required one. Thus, the donor would have to undergo a questionnaire on the date of his or her last donation.
Mr. Djimajor, added that physical activities could be done in the early hours of the day before donation but could not be done after the blood donation exercise.
He advised donors to take some rest to prevent collapse or dizziness and encouraged people to donate blood to save lives.
GNA
