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Health Watch Voluntary Blood Donation: Let us make it a drive By Dr SS Agarwal Simply opening a Blood Bank does not mean that donors will just come in. What is needed is a professional and systematic approach to donor education, recruitment and retention. The need of the hour is to develop an effective and sustainable blood donor programme. Furthermore, although Blood Banks are usually located in hospitals, the approach to dealing with healthy voluntary donors is entirely different from the way we interact with hospital patients. The ultimate goal for every country is to achieve 100 per cent voluntary non-remunerated blood donation. Safe blood donors are the cornerstone of a safe and adequate supply of blood and blood products. The safest blood donors are voluntary, non remunerated blood donors from low risk populations. The collection of blood only from voluntary, non-remunerated blood donors from low risk populations is an important measure for ensuring the safety, quality, availability and accessibility of blood transfusion. Evidence from around the world shows that the risk of transmission of HIV, hepatitis B and other blood-borne infections through unsafe transfusions is invariably lowest among voluntary, non-remunerated donors who give blood purely for altruistic reasons. Simply opening a blood bank does not mean that donors will just come in. What is needed is a professional and systematic approach to donor education, recruitment and retention. The need of the hour is to develop an effective and sustainable blood donor programme. Furthermore, although Blood Banks are usually located in hospitals, the approach to dealing with healthy voluntary donors is entirely different from the way we interact with hospital patients. The challenges in achieving the target of 100 per cent voluntary blood donation are many folds, such as-how to retain youth donors, how to retain leaders, stakeholders and clinicians, to meet the challenges of isolated communities. How to recognise regular donors, how to obtain support from sufficiently trained donor recruitment staff; and how to develop a plan to get financial support, to continue the drive. The general public should be made aware of the fact that higher rate of hepatitis B and C and HIV is seen in paid and replacement donors and the advantages that coexist with voluntary blood donation are seen at levels from personal to the patient and to the community as a whole. A person who donates blood voluntarily gets a tremendous amount of self satisfaction. Before donating blood the routine medical examination gives him a regular health check up and the routine investigations post donation rule out any infection in his blood. At community level the advantages of voluntary blood donations are seen as increasing cohesiveness amongst the community, the general fear of receiving and donating blood is reduced markedly by the education of community as a whole and practical experiences of influential members of the community and heads of families or group bring the community members together for a good cause. To make voluntary blood donation a drive or a steering factor a well planned voluntary donor programme is needed. This should have the following components- organisation, education, motivation and recruitment, donor care and donor follow-up and retention. Implementation of the various components is usually achieved over time but the development of a National Blood Policy is an important starting point and the umbrella under which the voluntary blood programme operates. National Blood Donor Programme for education, recruitment and retention of low risk blood donors, includes: Community-based voluntary blood donor organisations and youth programmes. Appointment of an officer responsible for the national blood donor programme. Training of donor recruitment and donor care staff for donor education, motivation, recruitment, selection and retention. Development of partnerships with non-governmental organisations, such as National Red Cross, Red Crescent societies, voluntary blood donor organisations, industrial groups and associations, educational institutions, Ministry of HRD, social organisation of different communities, trade association and trade union. Media should emphasise the positive points of voluntary blood donation that does not mean that it should hide the negative practices like remunerated blood donations from the professional donors. Identification of donor populations at low risk for transfusion - transmissible infections and development of strategies to promote positive attitudes towards voluntary blood donation is the key to achieve 100 per cent voluntary blood donation in the country. The target groups should be the youth, religious groups and community leaders who can be the most effective motivation for masses. The education of potential donors in the next step, for which attitudes and beliefs of donors or potential donors must be identified in order to develop audience specific education and motivation materials. Greater motivation is required for the first time donors. A usual spree for voluntary blood donation is always seen in the youth of the country whenever the nation is facing a disaster, tsunami or terrorist attack or war period but these are only for a particular time period, when any such disaster is fresh in our minds; after a time gap we tend to forget the importance of regular voluntary blood donation. This precisely the place where a change in mindset of the general public is needed especially in the youth between 20 and 30 years of age. Once we are able to break this ice of reluctance towards regular voluntary blood donation, we will have an ever flowing stream of voluntary non remunerated blood donors leaving no person dying in our country due to lack of safe blood. (The writer is national convener of BJP Doctor's Cell)

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