Prakasam District Collector A.S. Dinesh Kumar on Thursday urged health workers to go to the doorstep of blood donors to address the problem of blood shortage.
Inaugurating a state-of-the-art mobile blood collection unit donated by the International Federation of Red Cross, he said blood shortage should be a thing of the past now that the infrastructure bottleneck had been addressed. He exhorted the youth to volunteer to lower their arms to give the gift of life.
Blood donation drives had been impeded especially during COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in depleting stocks of blood, IRCS Prakasam district unit chairman Montesoori Prakash Babu said. While the demand was 200 units, the availability was 100-150 units of blood at any given point of time. The shortage was acute in the case of negative blood groups, he explained.
''At a time 100 units could be collected and stored. The IRCS blood bank would be upgraded soon to collect and store up to 1000 units, he said.
Hepatitis awareness
The Collector, who also inaugurated a World Hepatitis Day awareness campaign and a rally organised by the Vijayasree Hospitals Gastro and Liver Care Centre and Devarakonda Subbaiah Memorial Educational Society, underscored the importance of vaccination to avoid contracting chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Founder of Vijayasree Hospitals Dr. D. Venkateswarlu said hepatitis screening tests were done free of cost at the hospital every second Saturday.
Dr. B. Thirumala Rao, Assistant Professor, Government Medical college, Ongole, was among those present.
