ITANAGAR, 9 Sep: Health Minister Alo Libang flagged off two blood collection transport vans (BCTV), donated by the ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth under its CSR programme, here on Saturday.
“The BCTVs are air-conditioned and fitted with all requisite equipment like beds for blood donors, blood weighing and collection monitors, blood bag tube sealers, and blood bag cold storage compartments that can maintain the collected blood at a constant temperature using either direct power line or inbuilt inverter system and transport the collected blood to designated blood centres for further processing and storage,” State Blood Transfusion Council Deputy Director Dr Joram Khopey said.
Such vehicles are useful for holding outdoor voluntary blood donation camps, away from the blood centres, like colleges, army camps and other institutions. Further, it is seen that more people turn up for outdoor voluntary blood donations than in-house ones.
The flagging off ceremony was attended by ICICI officers, all the blood centre medical officers from the districts who were coincidentally present for a coordination meeting, and officials from the State Blood Transfusion Council and the NHM state blood cell.
One BCTV each will be placed at the blood centre in Gyati Takka General Hospital, Ziro (Lower Subansiri) and the blood centre in the zonal general hospital Tezu (Lohit).
These two blood centres are being upgraded with blood component separation units for the benefit of the people.
Libang and Dr Khopey thanked the ICICI Foundation for donating the vehicles, and expressed hope that the foundation would take up more such initiatives under its CSR programme in the future, especially for the rural and difficult areas of the state.
