Ghana collects half the blood it needs – digital approaches can improve that

It is late, the ward is crowded, and the clock is moving faster than everyone would like. A doctor has stabilised the patient as best they can, but one thing is missing – blood.

A relative is asked to “try somewhere else”, and within minutes, the family is on the phone, calling friends, contacting church groups, posting in WhatsApp chats, hoping that someone nearby is eligible, willing and able to reach the hospital in time.

In that moment, healthcare stops being only about medicine. It becomes about networks, trust and whether a lifesaving resource can be found quickly enough.

This is not an unusual drama in Ghana. It is a recurring reality, quietly shaping outcomes in emergencies, childbirth, surgery and severe illness. Ghana has made progress, but the gap between what is needed and what is available remains wide.

In 2024, Ghana’s National Blood Service collected 187,280 units of blood. This falls far short of the World Health Organization recommended annual stock requirement of 308,000 units. The consequences are tangible, including delays to surgery, difficult clinical decisions, and families carrying the burden of searching for blood at the worst possible time.

One way to gauge the scale is the “blood collection index”, defined as donations per 1,000 people. Ghana’s index increased from 5.9 in 2023 to 6.1 in 2024, but it remains well below the ten per 1,000 level that is often cited as a basic benchmark by the WHO.

The contrast is stark. The WHO’s global figures show an average (median) donation rate of 31.5 per 1,000 in high-income countries, compared with 6.6 per 1,000 in lower- and middle-income countries and 5.0 per 1,000 in low-income countries. Ghana is a low-income country, yet its donation level remains below average for this group of countries, underscoring a persistent gap between demand and supply.

Why does this matter so much? Because blood availability is not a niche issue. It underpins everyday healthcare and becomes decisive in emergencies.

Few examples are more urgent than childbirth. Postpartum haemorrhage (severe bleeding after delivery) can escalate rapidly, and survival often depends on timely transfusion.

In 2025, the WHO highlighted that bleeding following childbirth causes nearly 45,000 deaths globally each year. When anaemia is common, the danger increases further: women have less physiological “buffer” against blood loss.

Women who enter labour with severe anaemia have around seven times higher odds of dying or becoming critically ill from heavy bleeding after childbirth, compared to those with moderate anaemia. In plain terms, they start with less room for error, and without fast access to transfusion, things can spiral quickly.

So why is Ghana’s blood supply so difficult to secure? Part of the answer is structural. Blood services require investment in collection, testing, transport at the right temperature and distribution networks.

These systems must work reliably every day, not only during crises. Yet the demand is rising with population growth and expanding clinical services, while resources remain constrained. The result is a system that is often stretched, especially outside major urban centres.

Another part of the story is how donations are sourced. In many settings, a stable supply depends on a large base of regular voluntary donors. Ghana is still working towards that goal.

In 2024, voluntary donations nationwide decreased from 40% to 29%, even as regional blood centres saw some improvement. That matters because heavy reliance on replacement donors (family members or friends recruited at the point of need) creates unpredictability. Emergencies do not wait for someone to finish work, travel across town and pass eligibility screening.

Then there is trust. People don’t donate in a vacuum; they donate into a system they believe in.

In our ongoing national survey in Ghana on people’s blood donation experiences, trust is clearly concentrated in familiar and formal sources. Around nine in ten respondents report trust in requests coming from a family member or close friend, and similarly high trust in requests issued by an official hospital or clinic.

Trust drops as the source becomes more distant or less verifiable, with markedly higher scepticism towards non-hospital community donation groups and, most of all, unknown people.

Yet high trust in hospitals does not automatically translate into action. When people are unsure how blood is used, whether it reaches patients fairly, or whether it might be diverted or sold, willingness can stall.

Even when people want to help, uncertainty can lead to hesitation: “Will this really go where they say it will?” In a high-stakes context, doubt is costly.

This gap points to a transparency problem, where confidence depends not only on who makes the request, but also on whether the system can credibly show where the blood goes.

Finally, communication channels shape outcomes. When a hospital lacks a rapid, reliable way to reach suitable donors, it falls back on what is available: phone calls, personal networks and social media posts.

But social feeds are noisy, messages get buried, and not everyone has the same connectivity or social reach. The ability to mobilise donors becomes uneven, depending on who you know, where you live, and how quickly information travels.

None of this means Ghana lacks goodwill. In fact, the opposite is often true: communities respond generously when they understand a need and feel confident their help will make a difference. The challenge is that goodwill alone cannot compensate for gaps in infrastructure, coordination and trust.

Telling people to “donate more” is not a strategy if the system cannot consistently reach donors, support them and show them that their contribution mattered.

The solution?

What would meaningful progress look like? It starts with stronger hospital services and blood-bank capacity, so that safe collection, testing and storage can happen consistently.

Alongside that, Ghana needs a more organised digital way to mobilise donors: a channel that can reach the right people quickly, rather than relying on broad social media appeals that get buried, skimmed past, or spread too widely without finding eligible donors nearby.

A well-run system could also keep clear, traceable records for each donation and request, making it easier to show where blood goes and to coordinate fast, accountable responses when an emergency hits.

That is exactly the gap our research is tackling. We’re developing a hospital-linked digital platform designed for Ghana’s realities. Here, urgent requests can be sent quickly to nearby eligible donors through a trusted channel, with location-aware matching and follow-up rather than blanket posts. It also builds in transparent, auditable donation-to-use tracking, helping hospitals coordinate emergencies more efficiently while giving donors clearer reassurance about where their blood goes.

Because, in the end, the story of blood in Ghana is not only about shortages. It is about a simple question with life-or-death consequences: when someone is bleeding, will help arrive in time?

This article was commissioned in conjunction with Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025.

This article was commissioned in conjunction with Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025. Michael Head has previously received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Research England and the UK Department for International Development, and currently receives funding from the UK Medical Research Foundation, and UK Research and Innovation

Honghui Shen receives funding from the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre.

Markus Brede receives funding from UK Research and Innovation and has previously received funding from the Royal Society and the Alan Turing Institute.