18 banks to go online to meet blood shortage

SHIMLA: Even as the Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) is reeling under shortage of 11 lab technicians to increase the blood component from the 30 per cent to 80 per cent to avoid wastage of blood, the state health department is set to interlink all 18 blood banks on line to transfuse safe blood among the patients in its bid to meet the shortage of blood mainly in winter months in different hospitals in the state.

Kuldeep chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 21

Even as the Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) is reeling under shortage of 11 lab technicians to increase the blood component from the 30 per cent to 80 per cent to avoid wastage of blood, the state health department is set to interlink all 18 blood banks on line to transfuse safe blood among the patients in its bid to meet the shortage of blood mainly in winter months in different hospitals in the state.

As per the guidelines of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), blood banks need to be interlinked and monitored closely for the seven deadly infections before blood is converted into different components - blood plasma, blood platelets and the like, revealed health officials.

“We are linking all the 18 blood banks on line to meet the shortage of blood in hospitals and better coordination and monitoring as per NACO guidelines”, said Dr GD Gurung, project director, State AIDS Control Society.

“Once these blood banks are interlinked, we will have complete information on availability or shortage of blood at each blood bank and we can transfer the blood component to the hospital which needs it”, he added.

The blood banks face shortage of blood mainly during winter months as not many people turn up for donation due to holidays and cold weather, said Ajay Srivastva, chairman of Umang Foundation, an NGO, which is involved in organising free blood donations camps in the city. “If hospitals have blood components, we can save blood”, he added.

The state medical colleges – the IGMC and Dr Rajinder Prasad medical college Tanda — and the blood bank at zonal hospital, Mandi, have equipment that converts blood into different components. Colleges lack lab technicians to do the job, say the doctors.

“We have six lab technicians but need 11 more to convert the whole blood into components”, said Dr ML Kaushal, head, Department of Blood Transfusion and Haemotology, IGMC, Shimla. “We can increase the present blood component to 80 per cent from 30 per cent if we get these technicians”, he added.

Dr Kaushal said the demand for blood varies from 30 units per day to 60 units per day at theIGMC, whether it is winter or summer.