State Health dept tells dists to segregate blood components at donation camps

Kolkata: The State health department has issued an order making it mandatory for all the districts to segregate blood components at the blood donation camps before sending them to blood

banks or hospitals.

The department has already informed all the blood banks and hospitals about the new guidelines. The health department had earlier urged the districts to ensure that segregation of components are done at the camps. But no significant step has been taken yet. After one donates blood, four components have to be segregated at the camps and these segregated components will have to be dispatched to the blood banks. The four components which have to be separated are platelets, packed red blood cells (PRBC), Fresh Frozen Plasma (FFP) and Cryo. All four components will have to be sent to the nearest blood banks or hospitals in separate packs with names and expiry mentioned on them.

According to Health department sources, apart from five medical colleges in Kolkata, there are 40 state-run hospitals across the state where blood segregation is conducted. The state Health department has also taken up the initiative to set up more blood component separation units (BCSU) across the state to address the crisis of blood which is reported sometimes from various parts.

After the Covid pandemic broke out, the number of blood donation camps came down resulting in a blood crisis. The department is now coming up with more BCSUs so that the process of separating blood components is not affected. Setting up more BCSU will be able to address the issue. During the last summer, there was no major blood crisis issue in the state as there were adequate camps. Various components of blood are segregated in these

separation units.

Various NGOs which have been working on the issue have placed their demand for setting up more BCSU in the districts so that the blood collected from the camps are not sent to the city for the segregation of the components.