BANGALORE, Aug 15: Several blood banks in the state will have to contend with a severe shortage of blood when a Supreme Court order banning paid blood donors takes effect on December 31 this year.

The Supreme Court in its order on January 1, 1996 directed the Union and State Governments to eliminate paid donors within two years of the order. Anticipating a major shortage of blood as a result of the ban, the Supreme Court asked the Union and State governments to form National and State Blood Transfusion Councils to steer the blood banks in the changed scenario.

But even as the spectre of acute blood shortage looms large over the blood banks in the state, the State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC) is yet to set up a system to generate alternate donor sources. At present, Karnataka suffers from a 50 percent shortage in the daily requirement of blood.

The situation is likely to worsen since paid donors constitute 40 to 50 per cent of the total donors.

Interestingly, all 11 members of the SBTC are from Bangalore, leaving other districts and major cities like Mangalore and Mysore without any representation.

Again, the SBTC has excluded private blood banks and the non governmental sector -- which form a major network in the state -- from its membership. The Indian Association of Blood Banks (IABB) which is the largest network of blood banks in the private sector has also been denied STBC membership in the state.

This is again a violation of the court directive which, in itself, is quite explicit: ``...the State Blood Transfusion Councils should cover the entire range of services related to operation and requirements of blood banks.''

The Council should also be a registered society under the Societies Registration Act and would be a representative body having private blood banks and non governmental organisations apart from the Directorate of Health Services, State Drug Controller, National Aids Control Organisation and other important medical institutions in the state as its members.

IABB national joint secretary Divya Lal told The Indian Express that his association had frequently pointed out the discrepancy to the State Health Department. ``The Supreme Court order has 18 directives.

The government has been flouting all the directives except the one which bans paid donors. What will it do when the paid donors are gone?'' asked Lal.

The STBC has failed to initiate effective motivation campaigns to stimulate voluntary blood donations owing to paucity of funds. While disposing of the case on July 25 this year, the Supreme Court had empowered blood transfusion councils to raise funds from various sources including contributions from trade, industry and individuals. This is apart from the allocations made by the Union and State governments.

``What the SC intended by forming the blood transfusion councils was a mass movement to generate pure blood to meet the demands. But by keeping itself exclusively governmental in character, the purpose has been defeated.''

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.