President joins call for more blood donations
PRESIDENT Mustafa Akıncı has added his voice to calls for more people to donate blood for treating TRNC hospital patients.
Mr Akıncı told an international seminar to raise awareness of thalassaemia, an inherited blood disorder, that there had been an increase in civilian blood donations due to a mobile unit visiting communities throughout the country but that more was needed to make up an overall shortfall.
“In the past there was a reliance on soldiers who used to donate blood but that source has shown a relative drop,” he told the second International Thalassaemia Association Seminar at Çatalköy’s Acapulco Resort Hotel.
“[Soldiers] now only represent one in four donors, and this is a positive development. We cannot just expect everything from the soldiers; we need to achieve [donation targets] at civil society level and need to raise awareness to this end.”
During the four-day seminar, representatives of thalassaemia associations from Turkey, Azerbaijan and the TRNC heard that there were currently 151 people in North Cyprus, mostly aged over 30, who needed regular blood transfusions due to suffering from the disease.
“Representatives of the North Cyprus Thalassaemia Patients’ Association have long been calling for more donations to overcome the problem of insufficient stocks for these patients to receive the treatment they need,” said Mr Akıncı.
“We often talk about the gravity of the problem, yet there is also a success story to tell because the number of thalassaemia patients in the country has remained limited due to a prevention programme that was introduced in the 1980s which includes compulsory premarital and prenatal screening.”
Former health minister Gülsen Bozkurt told delegates that there had been no new cases of the disease in the TRNC for more than 15 years due to the measures.
“That is a huge success,” she said.
“In the past we had between 18 to 20 babies a year born with thalassaemia. If no measures had been taken, that number could have increased to 600 by now.
“We cannot be complacent, however, because we could see new cases at any time due to changes and movement in our population.”
Ahmet Varoğlu, head of the Thalassaemia Patients’ Association which is marking its 40th anniversary, said: “In the past, our aim was to keep our members alive. Now we aim to ensure they receive the treatment they need and to increase their quality of life.”