Nurses' Strike Bites Hard

No single unit of blood to save lives

The sit-down strike embarked on by nurses in the Eastern Region has had adverse effects on the Koforidua Government Hospital Blood Bank.

At the moment, there isn't a single unit of blood to save lives there, as there must be storage of blood there every 24hours to take care of critically injured patients.

This became evident when The Chronicle paid visit to the hospital upon receiving calls at the Koforidua office today that the officers at the blood bank did not want to release blood to save lives as part of the strike action by nurses.

The Chronicle learnt that, before the beginning of the nurses' 10-day old strike, the blood bank had about 50 units of blood in store to save lives at the hospital.

Since the nurse bleeders joined their friends in the strike, there hasn't been any nurse bleeders to even work on patients whose relatives are prepared to donate blood.

Investigation revealed that there are two new donor/bleeders at the blood bank who are now being trained and since they have not graduated, they could not receive blood from donors.

In this situation, the hospital has to decide whether to refer patients to other hospitals elsewhere, it was learnt.

At the moment there is a letter inviting the blood bank to go to the Akosombo SDA church for blood on October 10, amidst the fear that if by then the situation had not been normalized, the blood bank would find it difficult to honour the invitation.

When the head of the hospital blood Bank Mr. Emmanuel Banney, was contacted, he confirmed the story and appealed to the authorities to look into the nurses' grievance to forestall disaster.

At the time of filling this report The Chronicle learnt that the striking nurses had resolved to attend to emergency cases at the casualty ward. But how can they save patients who need blood to come back to life if the nurse bleeders do not go back to work?