This year’s theme for World Blood Donor Day 2009 is “Achieving 100 percent non-remunerated donation of blood and blood components”. Experts on blood services emphasized unanimously in a seminar hosted by the IRCS, “This can be achieved by blood donor motivation, retention of regular voluntary donors and motivation of replacement donors to become voluntary.”
In the same seminar Dr. S. P. Agarwal, Secretary General, IRCS stated, “The IRCS Blood Bank at National Headquarters has already achieved 84 percent non-remunerated voluntary donation of blood. In 2008, 18,000 units of blood were collected from voluntary donors and by 2010 we aim to take voluntary blood collection to 95 percent”. He thanked all the blood donors and organizers of the blood camps for their kind gesture and for supporting the cause of the organization in saving lives. All distinguished donors and blood camp organizers were felicitated by the society.
“Indian Red Cross Society has been the pioneer in the field of blood services and has been operating one of the major voluntary blood banks in India since 1962. The IRCS is running 116 blood banks across 14 States and the centers collect over five lakh units annually. IRCS (NHQ) is upgrading and expanding its blood services and is making it into a ‘state of art’ blood service centre and arm it with training facilities of the highest standards”, informs Dr Agarwal.
Representative of the Sant Nirankari Mandal, New Delhii felicitated on the occasion said, “There are evidences from around the world that demonstrate that voluntary, unpaid donors are the foundation of safe blood supply. They are least likely to transmit potentially life-threatening infections; hence we partner with the Red Cross in Delhi and its other centres.
NK Singh
Director,Information