ROXAS City – The province-wide voluntary blood donation campaign in 2024 in Capiz collected 15,926 blood units based on records from the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) – Capiz chapter.
The figure translates into 34 drums of blood with each blood unit equivalent to 450 cubic centimeters.
PRC-Capiz chapter administrator Raymundo Martinez said the blood collection represents nearly two percent of the province’s 804,952 total population based on the Philippine Statistics Authority’s 2020 Census of Population and Housing.
“Our sources of our blood donors are mostly coming from local government units (LGUs), Red Cross Youth, professional groups and hospitals,” he noted during the recently concluded 7th Chapter Assembly and Election in this city.
Data showed that all 17 LGUs in Capiz have reached their blood donation target last year.
The chapter dispensed 14,865 from the total blood units collected to accommodate the blood needs of patients in the province and through augmentation to the PRC’s blood centers in various parts of the country.
Martinez also emphasized that some LGUs in the province have passed local legislations which boosted the voluntary blood donation campaign in 2024.
These include the Provincial Ordinance No. 377 which grants any official or employee of the Capiz provincial government a one day leave of absence with pay for donating blood and local legislations establishing voluntary blood service program in Roxas City and in the municipalities of Maayon and Pontevedra.
PRC chapter has sustained the upward trend of the campaign from about 10,301 blood units collected in 2021 to 11,006 blood units in 2022.
The year-long blood campaign in 2023 also collected 13,502 blood bags. (PIA Capiz)
