Rural blood storage centres proving big help to patients

Nagpur: In order to save lives during emergencies in rural areas, the state health department has established 22 blood storage centres in six districts of Nagpur division. Process to start seven more is going on. The storage centres are improving blood availability in rural areas where the patients in need of blood had to earlier travel to urban areas.
“Cases of delivery and pre-natal care that require the blood are mostly seen benefiting from these centres. It is also a relief for many sickle cell patients who require blood transfusion at regular intervals and otherwise had to travel to a city for the same,” said the deputy director (health) Dr Sanjay Jaiswal. “These centres are enabling us to give faster services in cases of traffic accidents, they are helping patients save time as well the transportation cost,” he added.
Four years ago, state government had sanctioned funds for 29 blood storage centres for Nagpur division. The centres are being setup at sub-district and rural hospitals. Each one is linked to a blood bank in government hospital in nearby city that supplies it with the blood stock based on its need.
Assistant director (health), Nagpur, Dr R S Farooqie said, “Every storage centre is equipped with a refrigerator. The government has appointed a medical superintendent and one lab technician. Each centre has a capacity to store up to 20-25 units of blood.” At present, the storage centres provide only the whole blood but plans are afoot to keep stock of blood components as well.
Of the 29 centres sanctioned for the division, five centres were sanctioned for Nagpur district alone. Of those, centres at Umred and Kamptee are functioning while ones for Ramtek, Katol and Kalmeshwar are stuck over some or the other reason. Five centres were sanctioned for Chandrapur district and came up at Warora, Mul, Brahmapuri, Rajura and Nagbhid while two for Gondia district are at Deori and Tirora.
Six centres were sanctioned for Wardha of which four are functioning at Hinganghat, Arvi, Pulgaon and Karanja while the ones at Selu and Wadner are yet to come up. Six centres were sanctioned for Gadchiroli district of which five — Kurkheda, Dhanora, Chamorshi, Sironcha and Armori-- are functioning at present while the one at Etapalli is yet to start. Of the five centres at Bhandara, four are working at Tumsar, Sakoli, Paoni and Mohadi while the one Lakhandur is not functional yet.