British Embassy supports blood donation campaign for children
British Embassy supports Blood Donation Campaign for children at the National Institute of Children's Health - Children's Hospital Breña
The British Community and the National Institute of Children’s Health – Children’s Hospital Breña, worked together to encourage blood donations for the treatment of children with cardiovascular congenital diseases, burns, aplastic anemia, hydrocephaly, and other diseases.
Commenting on the initiative, the British Ambassador, Anwar Choudhury said:
“I am extremely proud that the Embassy, the British Community, and our Peruvian friends were able to make a contribution to help children in desperate need. Having received donated blood myself, I have a very personal understanding of the importance of this life-saving activity. We hope our initiative will encourage more people in Peru to help save lives by donating blood.”
The donation campaign was held on 20 August at the Residence of the British Ambassador in Peru, precisely one day before Peru celebrated its National Children’s Day.
Thanks to the invaluable support of almost 60 donors who attended the event, we were able to raise 43 full units of blood, which will help save the lives of 132 children.
We would like to thank all the volunteers who came to the British Residence to support the event, including students from Newton College, the Volunteer Fire Department, the INSN medical staff and its Lady Volunteers, and the British Embassy staff.
The INSN Breña receives a daily average of 1300 outpatient children and has 450 hospital beds. They are the only pediatric hospital to cover 99 percent of medical specialties in Peru. As such they receive and treat children and adolescents from all over Peru, including the remotest parts of the country.
In addition to raising blood for children in need, we hope our efforts will encourage others to join the campaign to “DONATE A DROP OF LOVE, DONATE BLOOD”, an initiative by the Blood Bank at the INSN.
The British government is working this year to support the Peruvian government to establish a National Blood Bank System. To this end, it is funding a project implemented with the support of the Peruvian Society of Haemotherapy and Blood Bank, the Ministry of Health and British experts, to show how safe and adequate the blood supply can be in the Peru through the development of protocols, training of health professionals and the implementation of a pilot centre.