Rishard Khan
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Health launched the True Vol­un­tary Blood Do­na­tion Cam­paign on Tues­day. If suc­cess­ful, it will mean pa­tients in need of blood will no longer need some­one to do­nate on their be­half to the bank un­der the cur­rent "chit sys­tem."

To ac­com­plish this, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said they hope to re­cruit 20,000 peo­ple to vol­un­tar­i­ly do­nate blood twice per year. With this, he said, there will be enough sup­ply to the bank to negate the need for peo­ple to do­nate on be­half of a pa­tient.

He said the sys­tem will run con­cur­rent­ly with the cur­rent sys­tem over the next 24 to 36 months, at the end of which, the aim is to switch over en­tire­ly to the new one.

He said the blood banks cur­rent­ly re­ceive some 20,000 pints of blood an­nu­al­ly, how­ev­er, 98 per cent of that is do­nat­ed on be­half of some­one.

Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh was speak­ing at the launch on Tues­day at Queen's Hall.