KUALA LUMPUR, June 14 — Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, government hospital blood banks have been facing shortages. The organisation of a blood donation programme has also been changed with the introduction of new SOPs and extra procedures to protect and safeguard the donors and personnel on duty.
St John Ambulance of Malaysia (SJAM) has been constantly finding solutions and ideas to proceed with blood donation programmes, and has identified certain methods to improve and organise blood donation safely.
SJAM has also taken this opportunity to continue to train its volunteers and educate the community about the importance of blood donation.
Throughout 2020, SJAM has organised blood donation programmes in collaboration with the National Blood Centre and successfully collected 12,000 bags of blood. SJAM also managed to obtain support from its strategic partners in making these programmes a success.
One of the major hurdles we faced was to identify strategic and safe locations for our donors. After numerous discussions and meetings, SJAM managed to obtain a fixed location in 1 Utama Shopping Centre, Petaling Jaya which will be utilised as a blood donation location for the next three years.
This location will become a SJAM Community Centre and was opened in May 2021. It has been proposed to be converted into a Blood Donation Suite and will be operated by the National Blood Centre and the Ministry of Health (MOH), in collaboration with SJAM and 1 Utama Shopping Centre.
“SJAM is and always committed to assist the National Blood Centre and hospital blood banks if they run low in blood supply. We will work together with the community, to ensure there is enough blood supply,” said Lai See Ming, Commander-in-Chief of SJAM.
SJAM will also identify more locations throughout the country for the setting up of Blood Donation Suites, which will benefit hospital blood banks. SJAM would also like to take this opportunity to appeal for donations and invite corporations and individuals to support this initiative.
SJAM would also like to take this opportunity to wish happy World Blood Donor Day to all donors. We would like to appreciate their contributions, sacrifices and efforts to save lives.
In conjunction with World Blood Donor Day on June 14, our strategic partner, 99 Speedmart, will be sponsoring goodie bags daily from June 14 to 30, which will be given to the first 30 successful blood donors at the Blood Donation Suite at 1 Utama Shopping Centre. The suite will operates daily from 11.00am till 7.00pm, including public holidays.
