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#Challenge: Have a Heart and donate blood

17 February 2021 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Pixabay

blood donation_web read more — Two final-year MBChB students show how it is done when they donated blood earlier this year.

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) staff and students in the Faculty of Health Sciences have challenged other departments in the faculty as well as other faculties and departments at the University of the Free State (UFS) to see whose staff and students will donate the most blood!

Mrs Angela Vorster, UFS Clinical Psychologist, says the South African National Blood Services (SANBS) has been appealing for increased blood donations since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. In order to provide support, the School of Clinical Medicine at the UFS held a virtual blood donation challenge in 2020, to encourage students to participate in altruistic behaviour and to enable the pre-clinical platform year groups to also feel like they are providing essential medical assistance.

“This was hugely successful and consequently we decided to include a blood donation challenge in our annual Mental Health Awareness programme. The benefits of donating blood are not only of a physiological nature (e.g. it assists in reducing iron levels and helps to control high blood pressure etc.) but means you are giving something of yourself. It will definitely save at least one life, perhaps more, and is incredibly beneficial in enhancing feelings of self-worth and personal meaning,” says Vorster.

The Faculty of Health Sciences invited the SANBS to UFS this week to provide all students and staff with the opportunity to donate blood at their place of work and study. So Have a Heart and take a few minutes to relax with a cookie and cool drink while your heart does the work of blood donation for you.

Details are as follows:

When: 18 and 19 February

Where: Francois Retief Foyer UFS

Time: 07:00-14:30

News Archive

UFS strengthens EU cooperation

2010-04-22

Seen here are, from the left: Prof. Ezekiel Moraka, Prof. Alain Verschoren, Rector of the University of Antwerp (UA), Prof. Aldo Stroebel, and Prof. Luc D’Haese, UA Presidential Steering Committee on Internationalisation, and UFS International Advisory Board Member.
Photo: supplied

Prof. Ezekiel Moraka, Vice-Rector: External Relations, visited a number of institutions in Europe to strengthen collaboration and joint research activities. He was accompanied by Prof. Aldo Stroebel, Director: International Affairs. The Universities of Leuven and Ghent, both of which the UFS have longstanding and active agreements with, and both prominent research institutions, expressed their interest to expand and further support areas of collaboration in a number of disciplines.

The University of Antwerp, with whom the UFS has partnered in the pending Erasmus Mundus mobility partnership programme of the EU, was one of the main universities visited in the context of the Strategic Academic Clusters, long-standing collaboration in the areas of public health research and linguistics, and the exploration of international research funding opportunities.

Prof. Moraka was a special guest at the Going Global Conference in London hosted by the British Council in the session on Autonomy and Accountability: Achieving a balance between the needs of the State and tertiary education institutions. In addition, successful collaborative discussions were held at the Association for Commonwealth Universities (ACU) with Dr John Tarrant, Secretary-General, on funding opportunities for staff development and mobility support.

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