By Durell Namasani

National Bank of Malawi (NBM) Plc has donated a blood bank refrigerator worth K40 million to Mangochi district hospital in Mangochi district.

Speaking after receiving the donation, Director of Health and Social Services (DHSS) for Mangochi district Dr. Henry Chibowa Jnr, expressed gratitude to the bank for the kind gesture saying the new blood bank will play a significant role in saving more lives of people in need of blood in the district and surrounding areas.

Chibowa said, “We have had a number of challenges in terms of giving blood to those people who need it in Mangochi. On a monthly basis we need about close to 400 blood transfusions that are supposed to be done but because of capacity challenges in terms of how much blood we can keep and stole in our bank, we had a number of challenges. With the coming in of this fridge which is 50 percent bigger than the fridge that we have, we feel that that the problems are going to be alleviated.”

Chibowa further said that the donation will help to solve the transportation challenges that most hospitals in the district experience to access blood from MBTS’s blood transfusion center in Balaka.

In his remarks, MBTS Acting Chief Executive Officer Dr. Bridon M’baya said the donation will significantly improve access to safe blood for communities served by Mangochi district hospital and other surrounding hospitals like Monkey-bay Community Hospital as well as Koche, St Martins and Mulibwanji Mission Hospitals. 

He said the blood bank fridge will act as the storage facility for all the hospitals in the district.

“As we are continuously improving our supply of blood in health facilities there are several financial and operational challenges that we are facing which include inadequate blood storage facilities. Therefore, with this kind gesture from the corporate organizations we are confident that we will be able to achieve our vision and mission of supplying safe and adequate blood and blood products which will in turn save more lives,” said M’baya.

According to National Bank Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Harold Jiya, the donation was in response to an appeal made by Malawi Blood Transfusion Service (MBTS) for financial help to procure blood bank fridges in some districts across the country.

Jiya said the donation is a life-changing commitment the bank made in December, 2023 to donate 2 percent of its profit after tax to corporate social investments.

“As National Bank we do set aside 2 percent of our profit after tax for life changing initiatives under our corporate social investment program. So, we did identify the gap that is there in terms of blood transportation and storage that’s why we decided to come in and help MBTS in saving the lives of those people in need of blood,” said Jiya.

To access blood from MBTS, hospitals are required to collect blood from the organization’s centres which are located in Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Balaka.

This is challenging for hospitals that are located in remote areas making it difficult for them to access blood from MBTS in good time.

It is against this background that National Bank of Malawi committed K80 million for the purchase of two blood bank fridges for MBTS to help ease shortage of blood at Mangochi and Mulanje District Hospitals.

The bank has since pledged more support to MBTS and said they will soon start helping the organization in servicing some of its blood banks.

Apart from Mangochi and Mulanje, MBTS has blood bank fridges at Karonga, Kasungu and Nkhotakota district hospitals as well as Ngabu rural hospital in Chikwawa district.