Blood donation volunteers and MAF medical staff.
01 August 2011
New Zealand soldiers participated in a blood drive organised by the Malaysian Armed Forces on 16 June at the Foladi Health Centre, about 10 km from Kiwi Base in Afghanistan.
As part of the capacity building of Bamyan Hospital, the blood donation campaign was arranged to encourage local people to donate blood. Donated blood will be used mostly for maternity patients who arrive up to two days following the onset of labour, already with a low blood count prior to going into labour, and who may require an emergency caesarean section.
Bamyan Provincial Hospital suffers a chronic shortage of blood products as it is not a usual aspect of Afghanistan’s culture to donate blood.
The blood donation was performed by a local phlebotomist with local equipment and under the eye of NZ Provincial Reconstruction Team Medical Officer Captain Matt Miller, to ensure the safety of the soldiers and a maximum extraction of 350mls.
The reason a smaller volume of blood taken is that at an altitude of 7500 ft, the effects of low oxygen can be exaggerated with a greater blood loss. The NZ donors still need to be well enough to be soldiers at the end of the day. Despite eight soldiers volunteering to donate blood from the NZ PRT, only three were able to donate due to time constraints (Sergeant Trevor King, Captain Sheree Holmes, and Sergeant George Alexander).
However, after watching the Kiwi soldiers donate, four locals volunteered to be next in line. By the end of the day, 12 local people had donated blood, up from zero for previous years, making this campaign a resounding success.