Camps, felicitation of good Samaritans on World Blood Donor's Day

From donation camps to felicitation of good Samaritans, a host of events were today held by various organisations in Delhi and other parts of the country to mark the World Blood Donor's Day.

It is celebrated on June 14 across the globe every year to recognise the life-saving role of voluntary blood donation in case of medical emergency and natural disasters.

This year Greece became the host country as the world adopts the slogan 'Be there for someone else. Give blood. Share life'.

The national capital, too, enthusiastically observed the day as several blood donation camps were organised by non-governmental organisations.

"We organised several blood donation camps across the country today and 50 people at the headquarters here have donated blood till now," Neel Kamal Singh, Deputy Secretary, the Indian Red Cross Society, told PTI.

"We organised felicitation ceremony at Faridabad to felicitate 243 blood donors who have donated blood fifteen times or more, voluntarily," he said.

In Karnataka, the society recognised centurion blood donors, while a similar ceremony took place at several other places such as Ahmedabad, Patna and Mumbai.

"Networking system facilitated by technology has created a strong network of people willing to donate blood and thereby people in need of blood can also seek help easily," he added.

He also recognised the role of NGOs in busting various myths around it.

Seema Arora, Senior Manager, at NGO Sarthak Prayas, donation said a new social media feature has helped to integrate blood donors and eased the blood donation process.

"We have arranged two blood donation camps in the last two days. I was happy to see the response of blood donation drive at Okhla, where forty donors made appearance in six hours, and today we did it in Gurgaon," she said.

Anju Verma, Chief Medical Officer, Rotary Blood Bank, New Delhi, said, "Youth is becoming more and more aware of the need for blood donation and we saw appreciable response as around 225 people participated in four blood donation camps organised by us across Delhi-NCR."
Asked about the wastage od blood everyday, she said, "There is a provision of segregating the collected blood sample into four components and each component has its shelf life. Initially blood is segregated into red blood cells and plasma and depending on the demand, it further gets segregated."