BENGALURU: To deal with blood shortage in several hospitals, the health and family welfare department has proposed setting up four centres of excellence which will serve as central blood bank repositories. While there are several governments and private blood banks, patients still face issues in procuring blood. The centres have been proposed in Bengaluru, Hubballi, Ballari and Mangaluru.
“It will be a hub and spoke model with the mother blood banks co-ordinating with all the other blood banks in cities and towns. The collection from these centres will be distributed to areas where there is a need. This can increase the collection of platelets as well. We are waiting for a cabinet approval from the state,” said Pankaj Kumar Pandey, commissioner of the department.
“Technology will be upgraded at these centres with randomised testing done for quality assurance. The centres are proposed in Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru, Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences in Hubballi, Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences in Ballari, Wenlock District Hospital in Mangaluru. Altogether Rs 10 crore has already been allocated in the budget for this and we have asked for an additional Rs 22 crore from the state government as money will be needed for human resources. Blood collected can be redirected from the centres to wherever there is a shortage,” an official said.
Randomised testing of blood samples will be done by these centres to check for diseases such as HIV, syphilis and other transfusion-transmissible infections.