Good response to blood donation camp

Our Correspondent

NURPUR, MARCH 23

To commemorate Martyrdom Day, Nurpur Blood Donors Club (NBDC) today organized a biggest-ever blood donation camp at Bodh, near here, in which 603 volunteers donated blood. An overwhelming enthusiasm was witnessed among volunteers, especially youths and women, who thronged the camp in the morning and waited for their turn in the long queues.

Three teams of doctors from blood banks of civil hospital Pathankot (Punjab), Tanda Medical College, Kangra, and zonal hospital, Dharamsala, collected 331,189 and 84 units of blood. They were forced to close the camp at 3.30 keeping in view the poor capacity of their blood banks.

Sub Divisional Magistrate Rakesh Prajapati inaugurated the camp by donating blood. Before opening the camp rich tributes were paid to martyrs Rajguru, Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev. The camp organizers had fixed a target of collecting 501 blood units. But it collected a record 603 units. Earlier 459 blood units had been collected at a camp organized at Baru Sahib University in Simaur district a few years ago.

While thanking social and voluntary organizations, youth and elected public representatives, president of NBDC Rajiv Pathania said the joint efforts of all made this mega blood donation camp a grand success. He urged the state government to upgrade blood storage centre of Nurpur civil hospital and claimed that the volunteers of the NBDC would take the responsibility of fulfilling the requirement of the blood units in the bank.

“At present, donors of the NBDC have to rush to the nearest blood bank in civil hospital Pathankot (Punjab) to donate blood where a patient hailing from Nurpur area has to pay Rs 1,050 as blood testing charges for single blood unit to the blood bank whereas these charges are exempted to patients from Punjab,” he lamented.

He also sought special incentive to blood donors from the state government on the pattern of Orissa where free travelling up to 1,000 kilometers per year was allowed to donors in government buses.