This is an issue I have pondered on, and failed to arrive at a plausible conclusion. Having seen the manner in which the National Blood Transfusion Service invades tertiary and postgraduate institutions and obtains free blood donations from many students of such institutions, I am at a loss as to why pints of blood are so expensive in Nigerian hospitals...

Personally, I have donated blood to the NBTS four times... Thrice when I was in d university...once in law school... So have many of my schoolmates and friends donated blood for free to the NBTS...

An incident happened where one of my friends who had also donated blood for free to the NBTS, had to to pay through his nose for blood to be given to his mum, who was critically ill... He then asked the hospital management ( a government hospital), of what use his donor card was, if he couldn't be at least entitled to a discount in blood prices, in spite if the fact that he had freely donated blood to the health system..




My point is, if the NBTS wishes to sell blood it has freely received, then it should stop pestering people to donate blood for free.. Instead it should establish a blood 'market' where the sale and purchase of healthy blood can be conducted without any form of deception...


What the hospitals are doing is evil... What d NBTS is doing is even 'eviller'( if there is a word like that)... If they wish to sell blood, let them start adequately remunerating blood donors.

I asked myslf d same question. For a woman to register for ante-natal in government hospitals it's a must for ur husband to donate a pint of blood even if u don't need it, however if during labour there is any need for d blood, ur husband who had donated will still have to pay for the blood in d same hospital where he donated.

I don't know about sale of blood. What I fonknow is that many hospitals give blood on request as long as the person who requires blood brings donors to replace the one he collects. Though some fee is required for screening the donor.

i wonder if it is because despite several people donating blood, most of it is useless. I know that when my sister was a med student in UI, all medical, dentistry and nursing students were required to donate blood. Despite such a large population (her class alone was about 600), she said that when they test blood, they have to throw away ones with STDs---HIV, gonorhea, syphillis and the like. Also, some people have bad diets so the oxygen carrying factor is low. some blood doesnt clot well or clots too much. so many issues. So you may be surprised that they may keep only 30-60% of their blood. Plus, i'm sure with NEPA issues, they will lose a lot if light goes out for hours.

But selling in Lagos is too bad. I prefer what UCH in Ibadan does (or at least used to do). My pastor's mother was going for an invasive surgery and they asked my pastor to find 4 people to donate blood so that if she needs blood, they will restock easily. That was the first time I gave blood and out of 4 of us, one was rejected eventually because he had low iron/oxygen count. At least, the blood is free. But im sure the demand for blood in Ibadan is not as high as in Lagos so they can afford such policies.

I dont think that Blood is sold in the hospitals. But you must pay the cost of screening the blood and that could be much.

In private hospitals esp, 'commercial donors' are paid for their blood, when families of patients have no other choice.

Blood is not for sale in our hospitals, but i understand that the cost of screening donors, storage of blood/blood products in the blood banks(epileptic power supply, some labs go solar) and cross-matching is usually high. That's what the patients are asked to pay for. Blood is priceless.

So, you know any hospital that buys blood, plasma or semen?

Quite a few months ago my fiancé was asked to donate blood for one of the woman in his village because she was ill
on doing so they took 3 pints of blood presuming because he is a tall man this would be ok .As you can imagine he passed
out they sent him home, the next day he became very ill and spent the next week in a different hospital on sedation and a fluid
drip with vitamins that we had to pay for ,all this for doing the right thing . Now last week his own very young son need 1 1/2 pints
of Blood because of illness and because my fiancé's blood levels are still low he could not give his own son blood so we had to buy
it and pay for treatment at the hospital but we had to pay for 2 pints of Blood .... still the question begs why would Blood have to be paid
for and why is hospital treatment not a right for everyone, is Human life so expendable , because if we didn't find the money my fiancé
would not be here and if we didn't find the money our son wouldn't either
No Blood is not free..