Dr Joseph Ruyonga, the Member of Parliament for West Division in Hoima City, has urged the government to immediately provide funds for blood collection supplies that he said are out of stock.
Raising a matter of national importance, the legislator who is a physician by profession said he is afraid that the country would run short of blood if the shortage of blood collection supplies at the National Medical Stores (NMS) is not addressed.
“My prayer is that the government provides money to the tune of Shs9b to allow Uganda Blood Transfusion Services collect more blood because from May 2023, there will be no supplies,” he said.
Dr Ruyonga added that basing on the World Health Organization (WHO) report, Uganda is collecting less units of blood compared to the country’s target.
“With a population of 45.7 million people and the refugee community, we expect 473,000 units of blood but this year, the resource envelope allocated for collecting blood was only for 300,000 units,” he said.
In her response, Ms Margaret Muhanga, the State Minister for Primary Health Care, said the ministry is working towards scaling up blood collection.
“We are scaling up the collection of blood to have enough in our blood bank. We sometimes drum up support for people to come and donate but when they donate, it is not enough. Remember, we have people who cannot donated blood,” she said.
The deputy speaker of parliament, Mr Thomas Tayebwa, directed the chairperson of the Health Committee to consider the situation as the committee considers the sector budget for the 2023/24 Financial Year.
