Mumbai: In-door blood bank at St George's Hospital

After more than seven years, St George's Hospital has started their in-door blood bank which will help donors to voluntarily donate blood. While earlier, the blood bank at the Fort-based state government-run hospital, only had an option of organising blood camps, they have now arranged a blood donation room inside the hospital.

Speaking about the infrastructure, Dr Madhukar Gaikwad, the medical superintendent of St George's Hospital, said, "Due to lack of infrastructure, we used to organise blood donation camps every week at other places so that citizens could voluntary donate blood. But now, we have set up a room and proper infrastructure as per the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) guidelines where people can voluntarily visit the blood bank and donate blood."

During the blood donation camps, around 25 to 30 bags of blood is collected every week by the hospital which is majorly used for the thalassemia patients which visits the hospital.

Currently, the hospital has 150 thalassemia patients which require blood for their living. On an average, 10 thalassemia patients visit the hospital daily for the blood transfusion.

In one bag of the blood bag, around 350 ml of blood is collected from the donor.

Dr Gaikwad, further said, "Besides the regular operation patients, we require blood for the thalassemia patients who visit the hospital daily for blood transfusion. This will help us to collect more blood in less time. We will be able to meet the demand for various blood groups for our patients in less time rather than arranging it from somewhere else."

He added, "We will still be organizing the regular blood donation camps besides opening of this in-door blood donation infrastructure."