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Collect only 500 units of blood a day: NACO
In a bid to reduce wastage of blood and encourage healthy blood donors, the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) has restricted the number of blood units that can be collected in a single camp to 500 units a day.
In a bid to reduce wastage of blood and encourage healthy blood donors, the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) has restricted the number of blood units that can be collected in a single camp to 500 units a day.
According to state health officials, the decision comes in order to dissuade competitive blood donation drives, which sometimes lead to forced blood donations.
NACO, a central government body, has directed blood banks to conduct proper screening of each donor to avoid collection of infected blood.
“In bigger camps, the quality of blood collected is not good. We need to dedicate sufficient time to screen donors. Their detailed medical history needs to be taken, only after which they should donate blood. This will help in reducing the collection of infected blood,” said Dr Archana Patil, director, Directorate of Health Services.
“In mega blood camps, large blood collection happens but in such situations there is a higher chance of sizable blood units collected being discarded. Blood and its components such as plasma and platelets have a shelf life within which they need to be transfused, failing which it has to be discarded,” said Dr Neelam Nijera, secretary, Federation of Bombay Blood Banks and bank in-charge of Raheja Hospital’s blood bank.
“The new guidelines will make blood donation camps expensive. Not all blood banks have counsellors. Also if 2000 units can be collected in a day, why would the organisers run the camp for four days? This will only increase their cost,” said an official involved in voluntary blood donation drives in the state.
According to a NACO official, mega blood donation camps are being organised in the country only to make a record.
“Blood donation is not about records. We need to collect healthy blood. It was observed that in large camps screening of donors was not being done properly and that affected the quality of blood collected. Blood if not stored properly gets wasted, especially during the transportation from the camp site to the bank,” said an official from NACO
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