Blood demand in a teaching Hospital in Ghana.

The blood requirement per acute hospital bed and the pattern of the supply were determined using the number of units of blood supplied to the various wards of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital between 1987 to 1993. The mean yearly supply and mean monthly supply and their standard deviations were determined. The former was used to calculate the blood needs per bed in the clinical departments and also per adult and paediatric bed respectively. The rainfall figures in mm per month and year were used to determine the mean rainfall for the various months and years under study. This was superimposed over the blood requirement. There were 1143 adult acute beds with blood requirement of 5.16 units per bed compared with 231 paediatric beds needing 9.2 units per bed. The mean blood requirement per acute hospital bed which is found to be applicable also to regional hospitals is 5.5. Paediatric blood usage was extremely high in July to September after the April to July rains and also very high in the years with the highest rainfall.