Asian Journal of Transfusion Science
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR Table of Contents   
Year : 2012  |  Volume : 6  |  Issue : 2  |  Page : 190
Ahead to 100% of voluntary nonremunerated blood donation at a tertiary referral hospital blood bank in South India


Department Transfusion Medicine and Immunohaematology, John Scudder Memorial Blood Bank, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamilnadu, India

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Date of Web Publication24-Jul-2012
 

How to cite this article:
Siromani U, Rajaiah M, Daniel D, Mammen JJ, Nair S C. Ahead to 100% of voluntary nonremunerated blood donation at a tertiary referral hospital blood bank in South India. Asian J Transfus Sci 2012;6:190

How to cite this URL:
Siromani U, Rajaiah M, Daniel D, Mammen JJ, Nair S C. Ahead to 100% of voluntary nonremunerated blood donation at a tertiary referral hospital blood bank in South India. Asian J Transfus Sci [serial online] 2012 [cited 2023 Mar 21];6:190. Available from: https://www.ajts.org/text.asp?2012/6/2/190/98954


Sir,

Recruitment and retention of new blood donor is an important task for blood banks for self-sufficient of blood and blood products. Availability of blood and blood products has been a universal problem for a long time. Blood is a scarce resource and it is the responsibility of Blood Banks to ensure that blood supply is safe, adequate, and available to meet needs of our patient populations. Motivation, recruitment, and retention of voluntary blood donors are important criteria to achieve safe blood donation. [1] Voluntary nonremunerated blood donors are considered to be safest source. [2] Converting first-time donors to become regular donors continues to be a challenge for blood banks. [3] Indian blood donation system currently operates using bloods from both voluntary and replacement donors. Indian government has aimed to evacuate the replacement blood donors to achieve 100% voluntary nonremunerated blood donation due to safety concerns. Voluntary blood donors are continuously necessary for patients because the demand for donor blood is never ending. Over a million blood units are collected every year; and many more millions still need to be collected to meet the global demand and ensure sufficient and timely provision of blood. [4] Secret of successful blood donor recruitment is to take beds to the donors as close as possible on their convenient date and time rather than expecting donors to come to blood bank. [5]

Christian Medical College Hospital (CMCH), Vellore, is privileged to be in the service of the nation since 1900 by serving the poor, the marginalized, and the underprivileged people. The John Scudder Memorial Blood Bank in CMCH operates both voluntary and replacement principle. Over 24,000 samples of blood donors screen for infectious diseases last year at JSM blood bank. Currently, 30% of the blood bank supplies come from voluntary blood donations.

In the year 2000, the voluntary blood donors were about 5%. Because of the low flow of volunteers at JSM blood bank we decided to recruit more donors and promoting voluntary blood donations in and around Vellore region. We involved community as our target. In view of this, we gave many public awareness talks on general scenario about blood, the demand and need for safe blood, donor's criteria, and we gave option to donate at Blood Bank or blood donation drive. We motivated many young and energetic students and community workers to spread the joy of blood donation to community and motivate them to donate blood or to organize blood donation camps at their institutions and localities.

Result of this, we arranged blood donation camps in and around Vellore district and number of our blood donation drives had been increased steadily. We had recruited many young enthusiastic blood donors at the camp site and they became repeated volunteers and ambassadors of our blood bank. We had conducted many blood donation camps in villages, religious ceremonies, local functions, and marriage receptions and utilized all available resources. Because of our efforts the number of blood donors had been significantly increased for last 7 year, rising at an average annual growth rate of 4-5%. Gradually we recruited new donors every year and in 2008, we had reached to about 30% of voluntary donors at our blood bank and we still recruit new donors through repeated blood donation drives to achieve 100% voluntary nonremunerated blood donation in John Scudder Memorial Blood Bank at near future.

 
   References Top

1.Ray S, Singh Z, Banerjee A. Psychosocial variables of voluntary blood donors at blood bank of a medical college. MJAFI 2005;61:130-3.  Back to cited text no. 1
    
2.Beal RW, van Aken WG. "Gift or good? A contemporary examination of the voluntary and commercial aspects of blood donation". Vox Sang 1992;63:1-5.  Back to cited text no. 2
[PUBMED]    
3.Schreiber GB, Sharma UK, Wright DJ, Glynn SA, Ownby HE, Tu Y, et al. And for the Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Study (2005), "First year donation patterns predict long-term commitment for first-time donors." Vox Sang 2005:88:114-21.  Back to cited text no. 3
    
4.Buciuniene I, Stonienë L, Blazeviciene A, Kazlauskaite R, Skudiene V. "Blood donors' motivation and attitude to non-remunerated blood donation in Lithuania". BMC Public Health 2006;6:166.  Back to cited text no. 4
    
5.National Guide Book on Blood Donor Motivation - NACO 2003.  Back to cited text no. 5
    

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Correspondence Address:
Umakanth Siromani
Department Transfusion Medicine and Immunohaematology, John Scudder Memorial Blood Bank, Christian Medical College, Vellore - 632 004, Tamilnadu
India
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Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None


DOI: 10.4103/0973-6247.98954

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