World Blood Donor Day
SHILLONG: Along with the rest of the World, Shillong also observed the World Blood Donor Day 2013 at Don Bosco Hall, Laitumkhrah here on Friday while highlighting this year’s campaign “Give the gift of life: donate blood”.
Organized by Meghalaya Aids Control Society (MACS) and Meghalaya State Blood Transfusion Council in collaboration with Licensed Blood Banks, East Khasi Hills District, the occasion saw the participation of doctors, NGOs, church-based organisations, students besides others.
Every year on June 14, World Blood Donor Day is observed to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to thank voluntary unpaid blood donors.
Addressing the gathering, Parliamentary Secretary, Dr Celestine Lyngdoh (MLA) stressed on the need to spread more awareness to the people especially those in the rural areas about the importance of blood donation and the need to shed away the fear psychosis people have about blood donation.
Urging MACS to initiate the idea of having a website for individual blood donors, Dr Lyngdoh said that if such awareness programs are only done in schools and colleges, many people who are not students will miss the opportunity and hence if a website is setup one can easily come forward to donate blood.
Besides the prize distribution & felicitation of Donor organizations and testimony, sharing of experience by regular donors, a presentation on the importance on voluntary blood donation was given by Dr Hughbert Dkhar, Pathologist at Nazareth hospital. Earlier, more than 30 volunteers of NSS, NCC and the RRC of St Edmund’s College donated blood at the Regional Blood Bank, Pasteur Institute Lawmali on Wednesday as part of their regular programme and on the occasion of World Blood Donors Day which was commemorated on Friday.
In another occasion, North East Frontier HQ ITB Police, Shillong in collaboration with NEIGRIHMS, organized a blood donation camp on Friday at the ITB Police Campus where two officers, 07 Subordinate Officers, 13 Jawans and 3 students of Arunachal Pradesh voluntarily donated blood on this occasion for saving lives of needy people