In order to encourage people to donate blood to individuals in dire need, Don De Sang Morocco is an NGO that regularly shares urgent calls from all over the nation, reminders, and campaigns to help establish a blood-donating culture in the kingdom.
But despite various efforts, Don De Sang noticed a major lack of communication among blood transfusion medical facilities as Morocco was struck by an unexpected earthquake that left thousands dead and injured, which complicated the procedure of donating at a time when it was most needed.
In an interview with MoroccoLatestNews, Zineb Ramiche, the NGO’s founder, said that there was a startling lack of communication as well as coordination of the centers at times of crisis, “as there are no official governmental social media accounts that share information in such cases”.
She added that while some centers have a small social media presence born of the personal efforts of their staff, the majority of them are inactive because their most recent posts were made in 2020.
Ramiche observed that during the recent Don De Sang post-quake blood donation campaign, people did go to the regional centers, but after waiting in line for hours, they were sent home. This is likely because the regional centers reached their capacity but were unable to announce it anywhere, which kept people coming.
“Few centers are present on Google Maps, making it hard to tell when they open and close,” added the NGO’s founder.
As the quake hit on Friday, the centers opened blood donations during the weekend, with little to no communication on the details.
To spare people the time they would have otherwise lost asking for more information in the designated centers, Don De Sang, fortunately, reached out to the majority of these centers and updated people on how to donate, situations in which donating isn’t advised, and the frequency of contributing.
“Blood donating culture is here, people want to donate and want to help, they just have questions that need to be answered,” affirmed Ramiche.
The staff at blood transfusion clinics do their best with the resources they have; we just need clear information to urge people to donate more, similar to how other countries handle comparable circumstances, concluded Ramiche.
Her page has been actively organizing blood donation campaigns for about a year now, trying to restore a blood-donating culture in Morocco and saving many lives, like what happened after the horrific Al Haouz earthquake struck and many efforts were deployed in solidarity with the victims.