The Christian Medical College Hospital here is all set to introduce a mobile blood bank. The vehicle will be a self-contained unit comprising three beds and other necessary facilities and will be accessible for people to donate blood at anytime, said Dr Dolly Daniel of the department of transfusion medicine, speaking ahead of World Blood Donor Day on Friday.
“We are targeting schools; we want to motivate children to donate blood when they attain the legal age of 18,” she said. The idea is to catch them young by dispelling myths about blood donation. The mobile facility will also be utilised to facilitate blood donation during gatherings such as festivals, sports meets and such events.
Recently, the blood bank attached to the hospital had introduced an SMS service to inform regular donors whenever blood was required, and the response was encouraging. The hospital gets almost 100 new donors every day, most of them donating blood for their relatives. “We dream of getting more than 100 volunteers every day and we are working towards this goal,” she added.
Dr Daniel pointed out that the gap between requirements and availability of blood was still large in developing countries because only 10 persons out of 1,000 volunteered to donate blood, as against 39 per 1,000 in developed countries.
In the past eight years, the number of volunteers who donated blood at CMC on a regular basis has increased five-fold. The recent government order that increased the age limit for donors from 60 to 65 has also helped in this regard, and the number of repeat donors has also increased, she added.
The hospital has also introduced a new technique to filter white blood cells that sometimes caused reactions on high risk patients. These filters automatically separate the white blood cells from the blood even while it is being drawn, said Dr Daniel.
Of late, using better preservatives for storing blood has helped in providing an extended shelf life. Blood can now be preserved for up to 42 days, as against 21 days earlier, she added.
