Need for blood

Comm. Dr George G. Buttigieg, director of the SMOM Blood Bank does well to make the recent (August 11) timely and impassioned appeal to the Maltese people to come forward and donate blood.

As was explained the requirements for human blood for transfusion have grown considerably over the years with the great expansion of the surgical services available at St Luke's and other hospitals.

The setting up and development of new special surgical units at St Luke' s since the 1980s (e.g. the neuro-surgery, cardio-thoracic, urological, etc) could only have come about with the increasing availability of blood and blood products from a reorganised National Blood Transfusion Centre palpably helped by the SMOM Blood Bank set up in 1968. Indeed the contribution of the SMOM Bank, which amounts to some 10 to 15 per cent of the demand has become indispensable.

The SMOM Bank must remain in existence and continue to give its full contribution to our health service. It constitutes the most important act of philanthropy that the Sovereign Military Order of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta, performs for the Maltese people, and this at a modest financial outlay.

Comm. Buttigieg, the director, should not even contemplate its closure; he should rather urge a higher investment on the part of the Order to improve the services presently being offered by the SMOM Blood Bank.

I have no doubt the necessary response on the part of ordinary people will be more than satisfactory.