Seventy-four districts in India do not have a blood bank, majorly the North Eastern states and Telangana.
Manpower to run blood banks in India is very low, a report submitted by an expert working group of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) states. Seventy-four districts in India do not have a blood bank, majorly the North Eastern states and Telangana. Sixty-eight of these 74 are slated to get blood banks under the National Health Mission.
The report criticises the Drugs and Cosmetics Act saying the present norms of manpower for blood banks are not adequate to run them efficiently. People employed with blood banks are expected to handle the load of outdoor and indoor blood donation, testing, reporting and providing good and services round the clock.
Also, norms do not specify dedicated staff to engage with blood donors to promote, motivate, or counsel persons for voluntary blood donation, observes the report. Even though 'replacing' blood is illegal, many hospitals ask the kin of patients to arrange for the same. The relatives have a tough time arranging for a 'replacement donor', which is in complete violation of the patient's right.
The expert group headed by special Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr BD Athani has recommended that there should be a social worker or a counsellor attached to every blood bank. Also, there is no staff for Quality Management systems, the group has noted.
Services of close to 400 specialists in 25 medical colleges that practise transfusion medicine are not being utilised optimally due to the absence of a mandatory regulatory requirement for specialists to be present in blood banks, the report notes.
The group has recommended that a person doing blood component separation in a blood bank should also have a post graduate degree or diploma in Pathology, Transfusion Medicine or Immunohaematology instead of a plain vanilla MBBS.
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