29 October 2009 / TODAY’S ZAMAN WITH WIRES, İSTANBUL
In a campaign initiated by the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay) in May 2007, which aims to find 1 million blood donors and is titled “One million good people are being sought,” more than 1 million blood donors have been found, Turkish Red Crescent Director-General Tekin Küçükali has said.
“I am happy to announce that our campaign had reached 1,025,000 people by the end of September. We have not forgotten that the most important thing is to increase awareness about donating blood and that as the only ‘medicine’ which cannot be produced, blood is of the utmost importance,” Küçükali told the Anatolia news agency. Stating that Kızılay had to deal with a horrible situation in 1999 when it was unprepared for an earthquake where over 17,000 people were killed and thousands lost their homes, Küçükali said in a survey conducted right after the earthquake, 26 percent of participants stated that they relied on Kızılay, while this number climbed to 85 percent in another survey in 2007.Küçükali further highlighted that blood donation in Turkey is not at sufficient levels and added that “a regular European citizen donates blood four times more than a Turk.” While noting that Turkish people are not asked to donate blood on a regular basis, Küçükali said: “When we asked people why they do not donate blood, they said, ‘You didn’t ask.’ This answer was a sign that we needed to look for the mistakes in our structure [Kızılay], instead of [blaming] Turks, who are always willing to help others. Then, we learned our lesson and decided to increase the technological infrastructure of our blood donation centers. Our centers are currently operating at high standards.”
