Trust to network state blood banks

AHMEDABAD, Nov 15: About 50,000 patients in the State face immense problem every year due to insufficient supply of blood for transfusion. M...

AHMEDABAD, Nov 15: About 50,000 patients in the State face immense problem every year due to insufficient supply of blood for transfusion. Mostly this issue is being taken care of by more than 60 unauthorised blood banks running in small and remote areas of the State.

To do away with the crisis and bring all authorised private blood banks on a common platform so that a need-based exchange programmes could be worked out, a Vadodara-based NRI funded trust `INDU Health Research Foundation’ has initiated a concept of networking of blood banks in Gujarat. In the beginning, INDU has singed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with 20 blood banks in the State who have also acceded to take concrete measures for promoting voluntary blood donations all over the State, INDU managing trustee Dr Vijay Shah told newspersons here on Sunday.

He said the organisation was contemplating to extend its services and networking to other cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai. More importantly, INDU has offered free blood supply, without replacement, to Western Railways for accident victims.

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Highlighting the need, Shah said about 1.8 lakh blood bags were required every year by various hospitals in the State and the demand was increasing daily. Expressing concern over the negligence, Shah said that it was highly alarming that despite Supreme Court’s ruling asking the blood banks not to obtain blood from professional donors, some blood banks were still involved in the same.

Shah said that blood banks were either managed by government or private trusts or doctors with food and drugs department’s approval. But their different status of ownership made them operate on more individualist way thus creating a lack of understanding between them. In such conditions it was observed that if there was a desperate need of a particular blood group in one bank, it was in excess in another such bank. "The concept of networking of blood banks is therefore to fulfill each other’s requirement and thus all," Shah stressed.

To avoid problems to a voluntary blood donor, Shah said, the INDU has decided to issue a common donor card to all voluntary donors during blood camps so that during emergency, blood could be obtained from any of the 20 banks. Shah demanded the State government should provide special benefits to voluntary donors like free insurance etc on the line of Andhra Pradesh government.