Kulsum International Hospital (KIH), Islamabad to celebrate World Blood Donor Day 2011 organized a Seminar recently at KIH in Islamabad. The objective was to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to praise voluntary blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood.
The theme for World Blood Donor Day 2011 is ‘More Blood, More Life’. This special day is utilized to celebrate the role of voluntary blood donors around the world, it is hoped that a new generation of blood donors will emerge and provide sufficient supplies of the safest blood possible for use wherever and whenever it is needed to save lives.
Dr. Aftab Ahmed Khan, Consultant Haematologist, KIH in his welcome address highlighted the role of blood bank in providing the safe blood transfusion to all patients. He further explained that at KIH this is achieved by a team of dedicated Technicians, Technologists and Consultants who ensure that these standards have been followed in letter and spirit.
He further said that at KIH every unit of blood is tested following international standard. KIH is also acquiring state of the art technology i.e Nucleic Acid Testing for blood screening. The methodology will be the first of its kind in the region and it will ensure that the window period of Transfusion Transmitted Infections (TTIs) particularly Hepatitis C is reduced close to zero. It will also ensure that safe blood practices at KIH.
Chief Guest, Dr. Hassan Abbas Zaheer, National Program Manager, the National Blood Transfusion Programme, Islamabad elaborated that this year theme reinforces the urgent need for more people all over the world to become lifesavers by volunteering to donate their blood on a regular basis. Safety of blood is of utmost importance. All the donated blood should be 100% screened for communicable diseases according to international blood standards and infection control practices. The quantity of blood in the developing world is a considerable problem because of the lack of voluntary donors. In addition, the security of blood is at risk due to the prevalence of paid or mercenary donors who have the financial incentive to be dishonest. World Blood Donor Day is a good occasion to encourage our blood donors to maintain healthy lifestyles, to protect both their own health and the health of the patients who receive their blood.
Dr. Haroon Khan, Consultant Pathologist-KIH emphasized that to ensure the safe blood transfusion public-private partnership is the need of the hour. Since screening TTI is costly so such kind of combination will promote the screening at affordable prices. He also added that being one of the stakeholders of the subject we emphasize the clean blood donation, efficient and accurate screening of TTIs and safe blood transfusions here at KIH. To ensure the availability of volunteer donors KIH is working on the idea of developing IT application using SMS texting where by in case of emergency Volunteer Blood Donors having that particular area will be automatically notified through SMS. This will be a web-based application. The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will be the first of its kind in Pakistan.
Dr. Muntazir Mehdi, Acting COO-KIH in his concluding remarks said that we are committed to deliver “premier healthcare services” to the community. Our motto is to give infection free blood to every patient and we are practicing it. After getting NAT, we would achieve a milestone in even safer blood transfusion.
He mentioned special thanks to Asim Ansari, Manager Laboratory and his team who worked tirelessly to make this event possible. He also thanked Dr. Quaid Saeed of WHO, Dr. Hassan Abbas Zaheer of NBTP, Arshad Mehmood of IDRAK and participants of the Seminar.