President to felicitate 3,500 blood donors
View(s):3,500 blood donors and Mobile Blood Donation Camp organisers will be felicitated under the patronage of President Mahinda Rajapaksa on June 14 at Temple Trees to commemorate World Blood Donor Day.
The felicitation comes as the Global Celebration of World Blood Donor Day next year (2014) has been offered to Sri Lanka, the first time an Asian country has got this opportunity, a spokesperson for the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) said, adding that this year’s Global Event is being held in France.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has selected June 14 as World Blood Donation Day since it commemorates the birthday of Karl Landsteiner (June 14, 1868-June 26, 1943), the Nobel Prize winning Austrian biologist and physician who discovered the ABO blood group system. On this day tribute is paid to voluntary blood donors for their noble act.
In Sri Lanka, as internationally, World Blood Donor Day is a national event held under the auspices of the Health Ministry. With contributions from leading private sector organisations, the celebration promotes awareness on the importance of volunteer blood donation. The NBTS has held these celebrations on a mass scale since 2004.
The NBTS is a special campaign under the Health Ministry with a history of more than 50 years supplying quality-assured blood and blood components to all government-sector hospitals and a majority of the private-sector hospitals.
The National Blood Centre at Narahenpita, is the operational headquarters for the Transfusion Service, while there are 84 hospital-based blood banks all over the country, divided into 16 clusters according to their geographical distribution. One main blood bank in each cluster has been developed as the cluster Centre Blood Bank and a Consultant Transfusion Physician or a Senior Medical Officer of the Transfusion Service supervises its functions and affiliated blood banks. This Consultant or Medical Officer also coordinates with the National Blood Centre in making policy decisions and implementing them.
Organised according to the WHO-recommended Centrally Coordinated System and national requirements, the NBTS has been recognised by the WHO as the model transfusion service in the South Asian region. Among the significant national and international awards the NBTS has won is the ‘Best Transfusion Service 2012’ among developing countries awarded by the International Society of Blood Transfusion after an open competition.
In keeping with modern advancements, the Sri Lankan government has signed agreements for two major development plans for NBTS. They are:
- A peripheral blood bank development programme to provide modern blood banking equipment to all peripheral blood banks around the country. In addition, 13 blood banks, especially in the north and the east, would also be provided new buildings.
- The introduction of state-of-the-art technology to the National Blood Centre which includes cord blood banking; stem cell collection and processing; frozen red cell processing storage and issuing; NAT testing for transfusion transmissible infections; improvement of HLA testing by molecular methods; introduction of a computerised network linking all the blood banks; and improvement of the National Blood Centre as a regional training centre in transfusing medicine.
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