DHA felicitates volunteers and organizations to mark World Blood Donor Day 2014.

DHA-DG thanks every blood donor in the UAE, donates blood  during a mobile blood donation campaign held today at the DHA headquarters.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, June 15, 2014: The Dubai Health Authority(DHA) felicitated today volunteers and organizations in the UAE that have regularly donated blood.

In line with World Blood Donor Day 2014, which was marked on 14th of June, this year, the Authority also conducted a mobile blood donation campaign at the DHA headquarters.

HE Eng. Essa Al Maidoor, Director-General of the DHA, presented certificates to  regular volunteers and companies that have helped DHA's Blood Donation Centre by donating blood as well as organizing blood donation campaigns. He said: “Blood donation is the responsibility of community members and through this noble initiative, these organizations have directly helped save lives of those in need. I would like to thank each and every blood donor in the UAE and I would like to encourage the community to come forward and donate blood.”

Post the felicitation, Al Maidoor and senior DHA officials donated blood during a mobile blood donation campaign that was held at the DHA headquarters.

Dr Laila Al Shaer, Director of the Blood Donation Centre encouraged the public to not only donate blood but also blood products. She said: “Regular blood donation takes 15 minutes, while platelet collection takes 45 minutes to one hour. Platelets are needed for a variety of medical reasons including managing post C-section bleeding to all kinds of cancer cases.”

She also encouraged organizations to hold mobile blood donation campaigns. She said: “ We understand the people do not always find the time to come to the Centre and therefore we regularly reach out to them through the mobile blood donation bus, which is fully-equipped and has state-of-the-art facilities for blood collection. At a time, we can collect blood from 200 donors and our message to organizations is to try and organize such blood collection drives at their premises which will directly help in saving lives of community members.”

In terms of the collection and distribution of blood, she said, in 2013, the Centre collected 43,000 units, of which 14500 units of blood  were provided to the Thalassemia Centre, 9000 units were given to the Trauma and Emergency cases and the rest were distributed among private and public hospitals.
 
The DHA blood donation centre is located in the premises of Latifa Hospital and individuals interested in donating blood may contact the centre at 04 2193221 04-2193786/ or alternately they may contact the DHA toll free number 800 342.