Many people die due to lack of blood and insufficient supply of blood. This is one of the critical and alarming situations right now where the number of population outnumbers the supply of blood and donors.
Blood Donation Initiatives
For the past 6 months, blood donation camps are being held in every police station in rotation, in the Howrah City Police Area. Different hospitals send their teams of doctors and their personal blood bank teams, to the camps. Also, a couple of individual blood banks are there, which collect blood from these camps, which are utilized later.
The Birth of Utsarga
West Bengal Chief Minister has very recently come up with a great community policing initiative, under the name “Utsarga”. The primary focus of the State Government is to conduct blood donation camps and free medical check-up for the masses. The initiative started off in the year 2017 and has been running successfully for the past 2 years. In fact, blood donation is considered to be a noble deed and 1 pint of blood can save a lot of lives, and thus arrangements for this camp has started, which has seen a huge response.
One of the hospitals which is associated with this blood bank is Howrah District Police Hospital. Every time, a team of doctors conduct medical check-ups and collect blood from these camps. Apart from common people who donate blood, the police in uniform actively participate in donating blood, which is indeed a matter of pride. Over a span of 7 days, almost 16000 units of blood were collected.
Bridging the Gap
Initiatives like Utsarga are a step towards bridging the gap faced by I.2 billions of Indians, which is lack of blood for medical purposes. Though 12 million units of blood are required every year, only 9 million units of blood are available. Every day more than 38,000 blood donations are required and a total of 30 million blood components are transfused each year. Shri Gaurav Sharma, IPS. Commissioner of Police, Howrah says” for the past 6 months, this initiative has indeed drawn a lot of acclaims and gained popularity amongst the netizens of Howrah. UTSARGA since its inception has indeed created a positive roar to build a robust bridge between the cops and the community. We have collected large quantity of blood through various camps and we will continue to do so to maintain the supply chain to meet the blood deficit that often creates a crisis in different health care facilities across Bengal.”
