Issue advisory to hold blood camps: PGI

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 13

In view of the Centre’s advisory on curtailing mass gatherings, the Department of Transfusion Medicine of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, has written to the Union Health Ministry requesting an issuance of advisory for holding blood donation camps to maintain adequate inventory of blood in banks.

The letter reads, “In view of the Covid outbreak, various blood donor organisations are having apprehensions in organising blood camps due to certain messages that have been circulated through various agencies advising people not to go together on large scale to prevent transmission. But at the same time holding blood camps is an important activity, which must go indoors and outdoors, to maintain adequate inventory of blood to cater to the patients’ needs in various hospitals.”

Also, the American Association of Blood Banks and Communicable Diseases Centre, Atlanta, has also conveyed that blood donation activities cannot be curtailed due to this fact.

It has been mentioned that individuals having signs/symptoms or history of travel to the affected areas in the past four weeks should be not be allowed at camps. However, individuals are not at risk of contracting Covid through the blood donation process.

PGI’s appeal

The department collects around 60,000 units of blood annually and supplies more than 1.5 lakh blood components. The major (90 per cent) source is healthy voluntary donors in the region.

The recent advisories from the government and the University Grants Commission to avoid large gatherings at any given moment do not discourage voluntary blood donation activity.

Since blood camps are planned and carried out in a staggered manner, it is strongly urged that voluntary blood donors and social organisations may come forward to donate blood in this hour of crisis with preference to donate at the Blood Donation Centre, PGI, Chandigarh (Room No. 107, Advanced Trauma Centre, Nehru Hospital, PGI) as well as in small camps following all due precautions.

The Blood Donation Centre is functional from 9 am to 8 pm on all days, including Saturdays and Sundays.

Guidelines to hold voluntary blood donation camp

• It is the collective responsibility of the society and blood transfusion services to jointly face this challenge bravely to ensure availability of adequate blood stocks
• There has to be blood available in blood banks, only then the transfusion department will be able supply it to patients
• Potential donors, both first-time or those who have donated earlier (after a gap of 90 days from previous donation), are requested to donate blood at blood donation centre of hospitals to contribute to national integration
• To ensure an adequate blood supply, it is imperative healthy individuals volunteer for blood donation
• Individuals, who have history of international travel, fever, cough, cold, stuffy or running nose and shortness of breath, should avoid coming to the blood camp venue and any public place where people gather in large numbers
• Communication using social media that individuals, who have history of international travel, must refrain from blood donation for at least 28 days if asymptomatic and 28 days after complete recovery if they had fever, cough, cold, stuffy or running nose, shortness of breath and/or diarrhoea for enabling self-exclusion
• The outdoor blood donation activity should have layout of blood donation camp and should be adequately spaced to avoid gathering of people at one working desk of blood donation