24 December 2007
Maputo — Nampula Central Hospital, the largest health unit in northern Mozambique, is facing a serious shortage of blood to deal with the needs of patients over this festive season, according to a Sunday report on Mozambican Television (TVM).
According to Benito Mutessa, the provincial head of the blood bank, the Nampula hospital possesses only 90 units of blood (a unit is half a litre), less than half the 200 units that it should have in stock.
"The festive season is always characterized by all kinds of incidents and the people who get injured need blood", said Mutessa. "The demand is greater and our stocks cannot satisfy the demand".
But the Nampula central hospital is better off than many other health units in the province, where the blood deficit is almost 90 per cent. This means that patients unfortunate enough to lose blood cannot receive transfusions, which is likely to have a serious impact on their health and even on their chances of survival.
Even the hospital in the province's second largest city, Nacala, is in this situation. To help minimize the problem, doctors and other health workers in the province have been giving their own blood in recent days, while appeals for blood have been directed at society at large.
The demand for blood is caused mainly by traffic accidents, which are more numerous around Xmas and New Year than at any other time.
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