Sri Lankan Association donates blood |11 December 2017

Some of the association’s members donating bloo

It was early on Saturday morning, around 8.30am, when the first members of the Sri Lankan Association arrived at the Blood Donation Centre at Victoria hospital.

Their aim was to give blood to help the Ministry of Health stock up on its blood bank.

Over 40 Sri Lankan nationals living in Seychelles were expected to show up throughout the day for screening and blood donation.

“The association came up with the idea to do an annual blood drive five years ago in order to help the Seychellois people,” the chairman of the association, Nitan Fonseka, revealed.

Mr Fonseka took this opportunity to encourage other associations and businesses to also come forward and donate blood, and by proxy save lives.

For her part, Dolores Pool, the senior principal nurse at the Health Care Agency (HCA), said the agency appreciates such an endeavour and hopes that the Sri Lankan association keeps on with its blood donation tradition.

“Blood donors are very important people because when you give one packet of blood you can be saving somebody’s life,” Ms Pool stated matter-of-factly.

“We sometimes have to advise a patient who is about to undergo surgery to bring a blood donor along because we simply do not have their blood type in stock,” she noted.

Ms Pool added that the blood bank is often low on the Type O negative blood group and, when this happens, the ministry usually reaches out to the public and receives great response.

The Sri Lankan association is hoping to carry on with other various social activities in the near future.