Month: February 2015

SHARING THE CORDILLERAN BLOOD

According to TCC’s health professional partners and advisers, short supply of blood and blood products is due to lack of voluntary blood donors. Large portion of the public, according to them, are not well informed about the importance of blood donation.

To initially give light to such misconceptions, Ms Lyka Delmas Bagano, Medical Laboratory Technologist at Red Cross, wants to share this info from Red Cross about facts on Blood Donation:

Red Cross Blood Donation Poster 1 Red Cross Blood Donation Poster 2“There is always a need for blood donors. Modern medical care, including surgery and medical treatment for many diseases, is not possible without the use of blood products. A shortage of blood products means that someone may not get prompt, adequate care.”

Excuses never save a life, Blood Donation does”.

Ms Fei Paas, another Medical Technologist, one of the initiator of this project, shares her following professional notes too:

BENEFITS OF BLOOD DONATION TO THE DONORS
1. IMPROVES CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH– Blood donation helps in lowering blood viscosity, thus, promoting better blood flow decreasing the chance of heart attack and lowers the risk of severe cardiovascular events like stroke.
2. REDUCES THE RISK OF CANCER AND OTHER SEVERE ILLNESSES – Blood donation balances Iron levels in the blood, thus, decreasing free-radical damage linked to excess Iron levels in the body and in turn decreases the risk of cancer, type 1 diabetes, cardiac arrhythmias, Alzheimer’s dse., etc.
3. WEIGHT MANAGEMENT – for every pint of blood given, 650 calories are burned. Combined with healthy living, the body can achieve a better fit.
4. HEALTHY BODY AND GLOWING SKIN – bloodletting allows the production of new blood cells. Replenishment of blood will refresh the circulatory system and in the process, all the other systems in the body. This improves oxygenation of blood and the body’s cells, the removal of toxins and improves all metabolic processes, giving you a healthy glow.
5. FREE MINI-PHYSICAL HEALTH CHECK-UP – prior to bloodletting, donors are given a physical health examination – checking of blood pressure, pulse rate, temperature, haemoglobin levels, and blood type – to see if they are fit to donate.
6. FREE BLOOD EXAMINATION – Blood units are tested for blood transmitted diseases like HIV 1/2, syphilis, Hepatitis virus, and malaria. If the unit will turn out reactive to one of these tests, the donor will be informed for early treatment.
7. FREE STUFF – Sometimes, give-aways are given to donors as appreciation, but bear in mind that this doesn’t happen all the time.
8. PSYCHOLOGICAL SATISFACTION – donating your blood is a noble cause. There’s nothing that beats the sense of accomplishment/achievement that comes with the joy of saving lives. You may deem yourself as ordinary but to somebody else, you’re a hero.

BENEFITS/EFFECT OF BLOOD DONATION TO THE GENERAL POPULATION
1. A unit of blood transfused may give someone a second chance at life. Take note, one unit of blood can save one up to three lives.
2. Regular blood donation will ensure a healthy, reliable, adequate, and safe supply of blood in the blood bank. With more donors, blood will be readily available when needed. This cuts-off or lessens the stress put upon family members of the patient in finding an immediate donor.
3. Blood transfusions are used to support various therapies. So your blood can help someone live a healthy/normal or near to normal life (i.e. persons undergoing dialysis or chemotherapy).

SOME MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT BLOOD DONATION
1. There are others who are donating. According to the PNRC, supply of blood is lesser than the demand; hence, some patients were not catered to. Even if there are others who are donating, it is still not enough. Besides, it is better to have a little extra than to have shortage.
2. My blood isn’t the right type. All blood types are needed.
3. I don’t have enough to spare. A healthy Individual will always have enough to spare. Besides, prior to bloodletting, you will be examined if you are fit to donate.
4. It will hurt. Yes, it will hurt a bit, like a pinching sensation, but what is that compared to the one who will be saved by it.
5. They will sell my blood to the recipient. This is one of the most common misconceptions about blood donation. The fee collected from the patient is actually for the compensation of the screening and processing of the blood product NOT payment for the blood. However, once you’ve utilized a blood, you have to replace it with a donor to maintain the supply of blood.
6. I might extract a disease due to blood donation. This is not possible unless you already have an underlying illness. Materials used for bloodletting are all disposable and used by one person only eradicating the possibility of transmitted diseases.

In response to the short supply of blood and blood component to patients needing blood transfusion within the Cordillera Region, The Cordillera Connection (TCC) is creating partnership with Red Cross-Benguet Chapter (soon to work out partnership with Red Cross-Baguio) in order to help increase reserves of this patient’s basic commodity in the blood bank. TCC sees this as an additional assistance to its beneficiaries who are regulary in need of blood transfusion.

Red Cross-Benguet Chapter Officials with TCC Team
TCC STAFF MEETING WITH RED CROSS – BENGUET OFFICIALS (OSCAR PARIS AND LYKA DELMAS BAGANO). Red Cross, thru Lyka, will send a draft of the MOA. We will be partnering with them in advocacy and blood donorship. This will help more beneficiaries as the demand for blood is so great but there are a few donors. TCC is represented by TCC Philippines President Gregorio C. Taag, Project Initiators Ms Fei Paas (Registered Medical Technologist) and Ms Michelle Apalla ( Registered Nurse).

Cordilleran SAF 13 Tribute Concert Survey

CORDILLERANS, WHERE WERE YOU Remember when our Cordilleran friends have initiated TCC to call for help for our brothers in the SAF service who have heroically fallen in the hands of the heartless and merciless barbaric extremist terrorist rebels, MILF and BIFF, in Mindanao?

This article is to update our cordilleran brothers and sisters. Just few days after the barbaric massacre of our servicemen brothers, we were suggested to create a solicitation drive and finally agreed and published a link entitled Tribute To Our Fallen Heroes: SAF-CORDILLERA. From day 1 of its posting until the writing of this survey, the unexpected course of events were as follows:

1. According to our website’s statistics, almost 9,000 Facebook users have shared the link and 7 tweets by Twitter users.

2. Following our posting, similar donation drives from different colorum as well as respected individuals and groups have sprouted in the social media including the donation drive by our very own government thru the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) whirlwind-like initiative of opening a bank account for the purpose of solicitation.

3. The Top 6 readers and sharers of our link were based in Canada, Philippines, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and United States. Surprisingly, sharers and readers from United Kingdom where our staff are geographically concentrated came only 7th followed by Singapore, Israel, and Libya.

4. Within the 3 week period that the link has been posted, only one kindhearted person has acted on the call. Our TCC project initiator who have called us to start this project has also given his pledge. The following image is a screenshot of the in-flow activities in our charity’s bank account showing the donation:

HSBC3

With the poor responce to our solicitation drive, there is obviously a difficulty for us to meet our initial objectives in accumulating a fund to be distibuted to the families of our fallen heroes as well as the planned tribute concert. Some TCC trustees have suggested that this very small amount accumulated will be coursed thru to the solicitation drive of a well-known cordilleran businessman/ lawyer and his group to have a unified solicitation. It is also suggested that this small fund be augmented by some TCC trustees to continue organising the tribute concert. Although the planned tribute concert is to be organised in memory of our fallen heroes, the proceeds will be for TCC beneficiaries who are mostly on long-term medications due to their chronic life-threatening illness. This idea is due to the fact that the families of our fallen heroes are expected to receive compensations from the government as well as from private donors. The planned tribute concert will be entitled “CONCERT FOR LIFE 13: A Tribute Concert To Our Cordilleran SAF 13 Heroes, For The Benefit Of Our Sick Brethren.” In this way, our remembrance to our fallen heroes thru this concert will benefit numbers of beneficiaries. For a background, our beneficiaries, their families relatives and friends will be selling tickets of the concert. Each beneficiary keeps whatever they have sold so they can use it directly for their medical needs. As usual, this will be a one-way project of TCC. It means that the funding of the concert will not be taken back from the sales of our beneficiaries. This method, has been tested by TCC to be effective and efficient rather than distributing our small cash funds to the beneficiaries as dole or alms. May we then take this opportunity to take survey on what is the best thing to do. Please take time to respond to the following survey. This will help a lot in making our decision regarding the small donation and the additional pledges from our TCC trustees, staff, founder and volunteers who are supporting our initiatives:

To anyone who would still wish to donate, donations are still accepted at our United Kingdom charity bank account. Details are as follows:

Bank: HSBC

Account Name: THE CORDILLERA CONNECTION

Account Number: 71608193

Sort Code: 40-02-01

International Bank Account Number (IBAN): GB12MIDL40020171608193 Please use

REFERENCE: SAF-CORDI

The Best Love Song Performed Ever by a Cordilleran Band on TCC Stage

And even though we ain’t got money,
I’m so in love with you, honey,
And everything will bring a chain of love.

The Fine 3 also called The Kultura Band really gave it a good shot on their performance at TCC’s Concert For Life 12 at the Baguio Convention Centre on 09 January 2015. They are one of the bands who are giving high hopes to our beneficiaries. Thanks to them. A meaningful piece for the this month of love.