National Voluntary Blood Donation Day, 1st October 2020,
& the Month-Long Campaign to promote Blood & Plasma Donation, PGIMER, Chandigarh
Chandigarh: 30 September: “The Covid-19 brought with it an unprecedented challenge of recruiting blood donors, but with the help of voluntary blood donor organisations and the committed blood donor pool in the region, the PGI was just able to meet the blood and blood components demand. The Department of Transfusion Medicine overcame this challenge with tireless efforts and well-coordinated approach. Not only, we continue to achieve the adequate number of blood donations, but also went a step ahead and took the initiative of starting “COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Bank” facility in the region in line with the instructions of the Administrator of the U.T., Chandigarh, honourable Sh. V. P. Singh Badnore.
This was stated by Prof. Jagat Ram, Director PGIMER while commending the Department of Transfusion Medicine on the eve of the National Voluntary Blood Donation Day being observed tomorrow i.e. 1st October, 2020.The theme for this year’s National Voluntary Blood Donation Day is“Let’s donate blood voluntarily and contribute to the fight against CORONA”as released by National Blood Transfusion Council (NBTC), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India.
“In sync with the theme, we started the “COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Bank” facility and have been working in motivating the “Recovered COVID-19 Warriors” to come forward for the “Gift of Plasma” that may help some of the COVID-19 patients catalyse and catapult their recovery from the infection,” stated Prof. Rati Ram, Head, Department of Transfusion Medicine, PGIMER
“Plasma Bank PGI Chandigarh plans to intensify its plasma donor outreach since one of the key challenges in the plasma donations is the motivation of COVID-19 recovered patients towards the donation.We request the public to come forth for donations and we ensure full safety at our end to the donors, added Prof. Rati Ram Sharma.
Lauding the efforts of the plasma donors, Dr. Suchet Sachdev, Associate Professor,Department of Transfusion Medicine, PGIMERsaid, “The star plasma donor” of the campaign, Mr. Malkit Singh, has donated plasma 4 times.The family plasma donor’s donation concept started with the very first plasma donations from thesister-brother duo of Ms Fiza Gupta and Mr Arnav Gupta. The other family donors arethe father-daughter duo of Mr. Anil Kumar Gupta and his daughter Ms Mehak Gupta, the cousins duo of Mr. Bharat Arora and Mr. Vinayak AroraMr. Radheyshyam Prajapati and his brother-in-law Mr. Ajay Kumar.
Dr Sachdev further shared, “As part of the plasma donation campaign, Mr. Yashpal Sharma, Mr. Nathu Ram, Mr. Aditya Sood, Mr. Imtiaz, Mr. Gurpal Singh, Mr. Navdeep Kalia, Mr. Ankush Rana, Mr. Anil Saini, Mr. Ajay Kumarhave donated at the plasma bank of PGI.
In line with that “Charity starts from home”a majority of plasma donors are from the PGI, the father-son duo of Mr. Hitesh Kumar and his son Mr. Daksh Kumar, other plasma donors from PGI are Mr. Ram Kumar, Dr. Suresh, Dr. Kanav Sharma, Dr. Rohit Mehtani, Dr. Amandeep Singh, Dr. Joshy Antony and Dr. Vipul Gupta, who is an PGI alumni. Stepping up the motivation, Dr. Nippun Prinja and Mr. Raswinder Singh of the Department of Transfusion Medicine (Blood Bank), PGIMER, Chandigarh donated plasma as part of the campaign to lead by example.
The PGI wishes to acknowledge all the COVID-19 Convalescent plasma donors for their “Gift of Plasma” in the fight against CORONA.
The Plasma Bank PGI appeals to all the recovered COVID-19 warriors who had symptomatic presentation at the time or during the infection to come forward for fitness assessment. They can contact Dr. Suchet Sachdev (7087009487) and Dr. Divjot Singh Lamba (7087003371) for the registration, in order to make the plasma bank facility a success in the region.
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Public Relations Office,
PGIMER, Chandigarh.
pro9pgimer@gmail.com
Contact : 7087008001; 9779560572, 0172-2756003
