‘Blood donation movement to get a boost in rural areas’

In her presentation,Dr Jasjit Kaur,joint director,Blood and Safety,Haryana State Aids Control Society,highlighted the plans that are being made to further strengthen the blood transfusion movement and increasing the role of rural folks and women.

“At present,the state has 78 per cent of the voluntary blood donations in government sponsored blood banks and these numbers have improved quite a lot over the last few years. We are planning to strengthen the role of motivators in villages so that the blood donation movement gets a boost,” said Dr Kaur on the sidelines of the conference.

According to her,the incentive for blood donation should be linked with overall health check-up camps for the benefit of donors.

In addition,the state through the Sakshar Mahila Samoh (SMS) has made sub-groups of women in villages to address health issues and blood donation.

Also,experiences for the blood donation movement at Nawanshr in Punjab were shared where 700 units per month are being transfused and over 250 registered blood donors exist.

Earlier in the day,former PGI director Dr B N S Walia inaugurated the conference.

The presidential address was delivered by Dr Debashish Gupta from the National Aids Control Society (NACO).

Legal aspects related to blood donation were explained by advocate Harpreet S Giani,while M L Sarin spoke on the occasion. The theme of the talk was “Target 100 per cent voluntary donors”.

The Mohunta Award went to Anup Ghosh,a centurion blood donor from West Bengal.

Nirmal Mahendroo,Kamna Sharma and Usha Talwar were also awarded.

The winners of the poster-making competition are: Ravi Parkash,Sanjeev Kumar and Geetu. Sonam Budhiraja won the consolation prize.