It’s past due, the ward is crowded, and the clock is shifting quicker than everybody would love. A health care provider has stabilised the affected person as very best they are able to, however something is lacking – blood.
A relative is requested to “try somewhere else”, and inside mins, the circle of relatives is at the telephone, calling pals, contacting church teams, posting in WhatsApp chats, hoping that any individual within sight is eligible, prepared and ready to achieve the medical institution in time.
In that second, healthcare stops being handiest about drugs. It turns into about networks, consider and whether or not a lifesaving useful resource may also be discovered temporarily sufficient.
This isn’t an abnormal drama in Ghana. This is a ordinary fact, quietly shaping results in emergencies, childbirth, surgical treatment and critical sickness. Ghana has made growth, however the hole between what is wanted and what’s to be had stays broad.
In 2024, Ghana’s Nationwide Blood Carrier accrued 187,280 devices of blood. This falls some distance wanting the International Well being Group beneficial annual inventory requirement of 308,000 devices. The effects are tangible, together with delays to surgical treatment, tricky medical selections, and households sporting the load of attempting to find blood on the worst conceivable time.
One solution to gauge the size is the “blood collection index”, outlined as donations consistent with 1,000 other folks. Ghana’s index higher from 5.9 in 2023 to six.1 in 2024, but it surely stays effectively under the 10 consistent with 1,000 stage this is incessantly cited as a fundamental benchmark through the WHO.
The distinction is stark. The WHO’s world figures display a mean (median) donation price of 31.5 consistent with 1,000 in high-income international locations, when compared with 6.6 consistent with 1,000 in lower- and middle-income international locations and 5.0 consistent with 1,000 in low-income international locations. Ghana is a low-income nation, but its donation stage stays under reasonable for this workforce of nations, underscoring a chronic hole between call for and provide.
Why does this subject such a lot? As a result of blood availability isn’t a distinct segment factor. It underpins on a regular basis healthcare and turns into decisive in emergencies.
Few examples are extra pressing than childbirth. Postpartum haemorrhage (critical bleeding after supply) can escalate abruptly, and survival incessantly is dependent upon well timed transfusion.
In 2025, the WHO highlighted that bleeding following childbirth reasons just about 45,000 deaths globally every 12 months. When anaemia is commonplace, the chance will increase additional: ladies have much less physiological “buffer” towards blood loss.
Ladies who input labour with critical anaemia have round seven instances upper odds of death or changing into seriously in poor health from heavy bleeding after childbirth, in comparison to the ones with average anaemia. In undeniable phrases, they begin with much less room for error, and with out rapid get right of entry to to transfusion, issues can spiral temporarily.
So why is Ghana’s blood provide so tricky to protected? A part of the solution is structural. Blood services and products require funding in assortment, trying out, delivery on the proper temperature and distribution networks.
Those techniques should paintings reliably each day, now not handiest all through crises. But the call for is emerging with inhabitants expansion and increasing medical services and products, whilst sources stay constrained. The result’s a machine this is incessantly stretched, particularly outdoor primary city centres.
Any other a part of the tale is how donations are sourced. In lots of settings, a solid provide is dependent upon a big base of normal voluntary donors. Ghana remains to be operating in opposition to that objective.
In 2024, voluntary donations national lowered from 40% to 29%, whilst regional blood centres noticed some development. That issues as a result of heavy reliance on substitute donors (members of the family or pals recruited on the level of want) creates unpredictability. Emergencies don’t look ahead to any individual to complete paintings, shuttle throughout the city and go eligibility screening.
Distribution of reported consider in blood-donation requests through supply. Diverging stacked bars illustrate the share of respondents settling on every consider stage, starting from strongly mistrust to strongly consider, throughout seven doable request resources. The knowledge is drawn from the analysis group’s nationwide survey in Ghana, with responses accrued as much as November 26.
Then there may be consider. Other folks don’t donate in a vacuum; they donate right into a machine they imagine in.
In our ongoing nationwide survey in Ghana on other folks’s blood donation studies, consider is obviously concentrated in acquainted and formal resources. Round 9 in ten respondents record consider in requests coming from a circle of relatives member or shut good friend, and in a similar way excessive consider in requests issued through an respectable medical institution or hospital.
Consider drops because the supply turns into extra far away or much less verifiable, with markedly upper scepticism in opposition to non-hospital group donation teams and, maximum of all, unknown other folks.
But excessive consider in hospitals does now not routinely translate into motion. When persons are undecided how blood is used, whether or not it reaches sufferers quite, or whether or not it may well be diverted or offered, willingness can stall.
Even if other folks wish to lend a hand, uncertainty can result in hesitation: “Will this really go where they say it will?” In a high-stakes context, doubt is expensive.
This hole issues to a transparency drawback, the place self belief relies now not handiest on who makes the request, but additionally on whether or not the machine can credibly display the place the blood is going.
In any case, conversation channels form results. When a medical institution lacks a speedy, dependable manner to achieve appropriate donors, it falls again on what’s to be had: telephone calls, private networks and social media posts.
However social feeds are noisy, messages get buried, and now not everybody has the similar connectivity or social succeed in. The facility to mobilise donors turns into asymmetric, relying on who you realize, the place you are living, and the way temporarily knowledge travels.
Long term willingness to donate blood amongst donors and non-donors: stacked bars display the distribution of aim responses for every workforce. The knowledge is drawn from the analysis group’s nationwide survey in Ghana, with responses accrued as much as November 26.
None of this implies Ghana lacks goodwill. In truth, the other is incessantly true: communities reply generously after they perceive a necessity and really feel assured their lend a hand will make a distinction. The problem is that goodwill by myself can not atone for gaps in infrastructure, coordination and consider.
Telling other folks to “donate more” isn’t a method if the machine can not constantly succeed in donors, improve them and display them that their contribution mattered.
The answer?
What would significant growth seem like? It begins with more potent medical institution services and products and blood-bank capability, in order that protected assortment, trying out and garage can occur constantly.
Along that, Ghana wishes a extra organised virtual solution to mobilise donors: a channel that may succeed in the correct other folks temporarily, quite than depending on huge social media appeals that get buried, skimmed previous, or unfold too extensively with out discovering eligible donors within sight.
A well-run machine may additionally stay transparent, traceable data for every donation and request, making it more straightforward to turn the place blood is going and to coordinate rapid, responsible responses when an emergency hits.
This is precisely the distance our analysis is tackling. We’re growing a hospital-linked virtual platform designed for Ghana’s realities. Right here, pressing requests may also be despatched temporarily to within sight eligible donors via a relied on channel, with location-aware matching and follow-up quite than blanket posts. It additionally builds in clear, auditable donation-to-use monitoring, serving to hospitals coordinate emergencies extra successfully whilst giving donors clearer reassurance about the place their blood is going.
As a result of, after all, the tale of blood in Ghana isn’t just about shortages. It’s a couple of easy query with life-or-death penalties: when any individual is bleeding, will lend a hand arrive in time?
This text was once commissioned together with Prototypes for Humanity, an international initiative that showcases and speeds up educational innovation to unravel social and environmental demanding situations. The Dialog is the media spouse of Prototypes for Humanity 2025.
