Hundreds of litres of blood collected to save lives

A visibly proud and happy father of Jade Ward was over the moon with the number of people who turned up for his little daughter’s blood donation day.

Little Warrior Ward Organisation in partnership with father Jason Ward’s employer, Lazarus Motor Company in Centurion organised the blood donation day in aid of Jade, who “is in hospital suffering from a disease similar to leukaemia”.

“It’s a genetic bone-marrow failure and as parents we always had to take her for blood top-ups,” said Jason.

“Every now and then there was a shortage and we had to sit there and wait, then she had to go for a bone-marrow transplant and in between she often has blood transfusions.”

He said that it was extremely painful to watch young kids suffer from the disease due to a shortage of blood yet there were millions of people who could easily donate blood and save their lives.

“I approached my boss Collin Lazarus and some of the ladies got involved and they organised this day as a means of giving back,” he said.

“As people, we do not have to give money, because you will never know where it goes, but with blood you know where it goes.”

Jason said the event meant the kids would get blood and that excited him more than anything.

“Today was the biggest success we imagined, I think at the moment we are sitting at 85 pints of blood, nurses actually had to go back to get extra cooler-boxes and bags,” he said.

Land Rover, Jaguar team contributed R32 000 towards Jade’s medical bill.

Jade was diagnosed with Fanconi’s anaemia, a condition that results in poor bone marrow function.

She was diagnosed over a year ago and doctors told her parents, Chrystal and Jason, that she needed a stem cell transplant to save the four-year-old’s life.

Last month, the family decided to raise funds to pay for the transplant.

Jason said it was difficult to give an exact cost of the procedure, but the fundraiser was meant to cover medical expenses.

Lazarus, who was in attendance, told the Rekord that Jade’s father has been a loyal staff member for many years hence the company decided to help him host the initiative.

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