DOH pushes voluntary blood donation

The “Blood Olympics,” which aims to advocate voluntary blood donation, was launched at the Department of Health (DOH) on Monday.

The DOH’s National Voluntary Blood Services Program led the event “to create a unifying and synergistic approach in advocating voluntary blood donation, especially among the DOH Central Office employees.”

“It aims to achieve adequate supply of safe blood and address the blood needs of DOH employees and patients in general. The event’s passionate crusader is Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial, herself a regular blood donor, spoke during the opening ceremonies,” the DOH stated.

Following its launch, a series of blood donation drive will take place on Jan. 8, April 2, July 2, and Oct. 1, 2018. To note, one may donate blood every three months in order to allow the body to restore its iron stock.

According to the Department Memorandum No. 2017-0389, the DOH encourages the participation of all the DOH personnel across all clusters of the agency all throughout the duration of the competition. Those who are invited to participate are the Office of the Secretary of Health, Office for Field Implementation Management, Office for Health Service Development, Office for Policy and Health Systems, Office for Technical Services, Office for Administration, Finance, and Procurement, and Office for Health Service Regulation.

“The results of the blood donation will be partially tallied per quarterly blood donation event based on the submitted employee list and the total blood units collected for that drive. The final results will be tallied and calculated at the end of the Olympic event to determine awardees for both conventional blood donation and apheresis donation,” the DOH noted.

The winning clusters will get a gold trophy for the first prize; silver trophy for the second prize; and bronze trophy for the third prize.