NUST Community Services Club organized a Seminar on Voluntary Blood Donation

Home/Journal/NUST Community Services Club organized a Seminar on Voluntary Blood Donation

NUST Community Services Club organized a Seminar on Voluntary Blood Donation

The Community Services Club (NCSC) at the National University of Science and Technology, Islamabad, organized a seminar on Voluntary Blood Donation. NUST Community Services Club offers a 2-credit hour course which is compulsory for all the UG students and involves social activities and awareness seminars.

The Seminar was conducted with the principal objective of raising awareness on voluntary blood donation. The guest speaker was Prof. Hasan Abbas Zaheer, Project Director Safe Blood Transfusion Programme and Incharge Blood Transfusion Services, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences. Prof. Zaheer addressed an enthusiastic mass of students and highlighted the need to unify all blood donor organizations (BDOs) based in universities across Islamabad under a single network.

Prof. Zaheer emphasized on bringing all the BDOs under one umbrella which will improve the voluntary blood donation concept in the ICT through the involvement of university students, an important initiative towards the creation of a BDO network. He also outlined the national and global scenario of blood donations and the annual blood demand and supply of Pakistan. The emerging challenges posed to blood transfusion system in the country include the recurrent and unforeseen terrorist attacks, natural disasters, dengue epidemic, and floods and the corresponding rise in blood donor demands.

He further said that unfortunately, Pakistan is part of the 77 per cent of countries where the donation rates are less than 1 per cent, Prof Hasan remarked, underlining the need for urgent reforms in the blood donation efforts. A question and answer session followed the lecture where students were given an opportunity to clear any misconceptions and concerns they had with regards to donating blood.

The seminar concluded with Prof. Zaheer’s encouraging the students to actively participate in resolving the issues that are currently hindering the process of blood donation. This will help improvise the blood donation system to promptly meet blood demands in the city. He appreciated the efforts of Dr. Irtiza Ali Shah, Head NCSC and Mr. Athar Mushtaq, Assistant Manager NCSC, in organizing a seminar with a very vital message.

2017-04-26T12:35:07+00:00