Hussaini Blood Bank – A division of Hussaini Haematology Oncology Trust organized a National Seminar to mark the World Blood Donor Day recently at a local hotel in Karachi.
Syed Hashim Raza Zaidi, Secretary Health, Government of Sindh speaking as Chief Guest on the occasion said that Government of Sindh would soon establish four centralized blood banks including Karachi for improving the availability of blood. Talks are being held with a Germen NGO in this regard.
He further said that the number of blood donors in Pakistan is very low as compared to that in other countries. In developing countries patients could get healthy blood without any difficulty while in Pakistan there is dearth of blood volunteers for saving precious lives.
There are many misconceptions in donating and receiving the blood. World Blood Donor Day is a healthy activity to motivate young people to donate blood and these activities should be continued on regular basis.
He requested both print and electronic media to play their role for motivating voluntarily blood donors and discouraging commercial donors.
Dr. Paul, Team Leader GTZ said that the situation of Pakistan in general, the fragmentation of the system is very predominant. There are many misconceptions of blood donation. Inspite of all technological advances in health sector, there is still need for collection and donate blood.
This year World Blood Donor Day’s slogan “New Blood for the World” entails double reference. Firstly, the blood has to be renewed, resupplied constantly as different components have only very limited duration of life. Secondly, it motivates young generation to join this effort.
This National Blood Transfusion Service project will introduce an improved infrastructure and it will create regional reference centres and it will also help the blood bank and different hospitals. Through this project, every body in need of blood will have access to it and at any time.
Dr. Hasan Abbas Zaheer in his address said that the aim of celebrating World Blood Donor Day is to pay tribute to all those voluntary blood donors who donated their blood throughout the year so that million of lives are saved all over the world.
This year, Ministry of Health (MoH) decided to coordinate World Blood Donor Day celebration with the Birthday of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. A week long campaign will be held which will pay tribute to the sacrifice of the legendary leader as well as blood donors.
He said that, there are disparities between the demand and supply of safe blood in comparing of blood transfusion system and access to safe blood transfusion in different parts of the world. In countries with developed healthcare system, high standard of quality of blood and blood components has led to the high level of human health protection and generated faith and confidence in the system among the donors as well as the users..
Challenging standard of quality and safety for collection, testing, processing, storage and distribution of human blood have been set and successfully attained.
In Pakistan, blood transfusion service has traditionally been accorded low priority in healthcare services. The current fragmented blood transfusion system in the country lacks a reliable and healthy donors based and donor registry of voluntary non-remunerative regular donors. This results in the absence of adequate and nationwide access to safe and affordable blood supply.
To introduce uniformity and standardization in the quality of blood and blood products supplied and optimization of the scarce financial and manpower resources, a coordinated approach for blood supply system needs to be introduced in Pakistan as practiced in developed world.
The government has taken concrete steps to ensure that every person in this country has access to safe blood for transfusion. The MoH has initiated Blood Safety Reform and designated the task to NACP who had already prepared PC-1 for Blood Transfusion Service project, which had been approved by the Planning Commission. Voluntary blood donations would be the foundation and cornerstone of this important project.
Dr. S. Sarfraz H. Jafry, Project Director, Hussaini Blood Bank, said that everybody could donate blood thrice a year. Hussaini Blood Bank is the largest blood bank which provides about 42 percent of total donated blood in Sindh including Karachi, adding 90 percent blood is collected through NGOs.
Akter Shaheen Rind, General Secretary, Association of Health Journalist Pakistan said that positive signs have been seen in health reporting after establishing the union of health reporters. He said that the association has organized training workshop for heath journalists in Dow University of Health and Sciences so that awareness could be made about health related issues among masses in proper way.
There is need to enhance the capacity of health journalists in Pakistan. He requested the stakeholders to join hands with the association and form a strategy to train health journalists.
Earlier, Asad Ali, Chief Executive, Hussaini Blood Bank offered vote of thanks.