Blood Facts

History of Blood Donation Movement in India

 

In 1925, the Imperial Serologist started a Transfusion Centre at the School of Tropical Medicine in Calcutta. This was a service to draw blood from a donor by syringes and transfuse to the recipient without any storage in between. In 1939 the Indian Red Cross Society formed a Blood Bank Committee to support the Transfusion Centre with equipment and donors. By then the Transfusion Centre was collecting blood in a flask and transfusing to the patients, occasionally keeping the flask for a couple of hours in a refrigerator. The war necessitated establishment of a blood bank with storage for a considerable period. On March 6, 1942 under a Government order of Major General W C. Paton, I.M.S., Surgeon General, Government of Bengal, Calcutta Blood Bank the first real blood bank of the country was established at the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, 110 Central Avenue (now Chittaranjan Avenue) Calcutta to meet the war need. The management of this blood bank was entrusted to the Blood Bank Committee of the Red Cross.

 

To meet the blood need of the war casualties, the Britishers, British managed industrial and commercial houses, government employees and the Anglo Indian community came forward to donate blood. The blood bank team collected 39050 units of blood between March 6, 1942 and May 15,1943 from Calcutta, its suburbs, including the railway head quarters at Nagpur, tea gardens of Assam and Darjeeling. Only 5458 units of blood were collected in the blood bank premises.

 

After the war, this blood bank was handed over to the State Govt and transferred to Calcutta Medical College campus. Nobody thought o' motivating and recruiting voluntary blood donors during peace time Professional blood sellers were accepted as the main source of blood to meet the need of the day. Blood banks were established in metropolita11) cities of the country in the forties. In the fifties the district blood banks were established. All these blood banks depended on professional sellers. Non- availability of blood in these government blood banks encouraged a number of doctors to establish commercial blood banks throughout the country. In 1954, the son of Mrs. Leela Moolgaoker, housewife of the Tata family met with a road accident in Bombay while travelling on a motor cycle. He was taken to St. Georges Hospital near VT Railway station. Blood was needed to save his life. Hospital employees and the employees of House came forward to donate blood. The life was saved. But this incident tiggered off the need of organising blood donation drives in the mind of Mrs Leela Moolgaoker. Mrs Moolgoker carried on her mission till her last day in 1992. Under the leadership of Dr H M Bhatia and Dr Z S Rharucha, Federation of Bombay Blood Banks was founded.

In 1962, Dr V G Mavahnkar an eminent surgeon of Ahmedabad, finding difficulty in getting right type of blood at the right time took up the cause of promotion of voluntary blood donation under the umbrella of Red Cross along with Dr Van; and carried on his self-assigned task till his death in 1984.

Led by Dr Triguna Sen, then Rector of Jadavpur University, students and teachers organised first blood collection drive during peace time in West Bengal on August 4, 1962. In a month long daily blood collection drive, 301 students and teachers donated blood. Some of the donors of this camp initiated the move to set up the Association of Voluntary Blood Donors, West Bengal in 1980 with eminent doctor and social worker Dr Labanya Kumar Ganguli as the president and established professional engineer Arunabha Chattopadhyay as the secretary to build up voluntary blood donation movement by involving the community and by using various innovative techniques. Voluntary organisations in the districts and subdivisions of the state were established and voluntary blood donation in the state became a statewide people's movement At the moment, there are forty voluntary organisations working exclusively on blood donor motivation, recruitment and retention for the fifty eight government blood banks of the state.

In 1962 Dr.M.L. Gupta Director Indian Red Cross Society Blood Bank, Delhi initiated voluntary blood donation movement in Delhi by bringing in other voluntary organisations.

In 1964 at Chandigarh, led by a housewife Mrs K Swaroop Krishen and supported by the then in-charge of the blood bank at P G I Chandigarh UrJ G Jolly, the Chandigarh Blood Bank Society was established to recruit voluntary blood donors. From Chandigarh at their initiative Indian Society Blood Transfusion and Immunohaematology (ISBTI) was established on October 22, 1971. This organisation introduced All India Voluntary Donation Day on October 1 in 1975. Since then, the day is being observed throughout the country. National AIDS Control Organisation came forward to support the observance of this day from 1996. ISBTI has chapters in some states of the country. In 1967, patronised by the Tata House, Jamshedpur Blood Bank was established to recruit voluntary blood donors and collect, store and distribute blood. In 1985, Voluntary Blood Donors Association, Jamshedpur, BiharJ was established to work from outside the blood bank to motivate and recruit blood donors.

In 1970, the students of Madurai Medical College, with the inspiration from their teachers Dr S A Kabir, Dr T Dorairajan and Dr T Chelliah set up Madurai Blood Donors Club to organise voluntary blood collection drive for the hospitals of the city. In 1974, Dr T Subramanian took over the charge and the club could do away with the professional blood sellers from the medical college hospital in 1983.

In 1975, Mrs Shanti Ranganathan, a housewife of the TTK family, established the Madras Voluntary Blood Bank to spread the message of voluntary blood donation in the state. Subsequently, led by R Rajkumar, a bank employee, the Association of Voluntary Blood Donors Tamil Nadu was established in 1991 to function from the same premises to work for the same cause for the whole state.

In 1985, the First National Seminar and Workshop exclusively on blood donor motivation took place at Calcutta. This three-day meet enabled field workers and the organisers working in the country to meet and share their experiences and inter state contacts and communications were established. The meeting after a whole night session, formulated a draft National Policy on Blood Transfusion, which was printed and circulated. The proceedings of the said meet served as the hand book on blood donor motivation for quite sometime. This prompted the Government of India to constitute a working group and organise workshops and the National Guidebook On Blood Donor Motivation came out in June 1990.

On the basis of the recommendations of the first-ever national meet on blood donor motivation, a link quarterly bulletin "Gift of Blood" came to be published regularly from Calcutta from October 1985. The bulletin has now completed its eighteen years.

National meets on donor motivation were subsequently organised by different organisations in Mumbai, Chennai, Chandigarh, Indore, Pune, Jaipur, Tamluk, Bhavnagar at regular intervals. Even two International meetings on donor motivation and recruitment were hosted at Calcutta in 1990 and 1995.

Other voluntary organisations to recruit blood donors were established in Tripura, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Punjab between eighties and till this date.

On a public interest litigation, the Supreme Court directed the Union Government on January 4, 1996 to abolish buying blood from sellers with effect from January 1, 1998 and asked the Government to constitute National and State Blood Transfusion Councils to promote voluntary blood donation.

National AIDS Control Organisation established, in 1992, under its Blood Safety Programme has been supporting voluntary blood donation of the country.

National and State Blood Councils were set up in July 1996 under the direction of the Supreme Court. The portions of the Drug Rules under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act related to blood banking were thoroughly revised and came into force from April 5, 1999 and subsequently modified thrice. National Blood Policy, after processing through all levels, was released on April 2002. The Action Plan for Blood Safety was released by NACO in May 2003.

NACO had his first phase of programme between 1992-99 and entered in its second phase of the programme on November 9, 1999. The second phase would continue upto 2004. Thirty percent of the project cost is focussed on Blood Safety. The project finances HIV and other test kits, technical assistance on blood safety, and upgradation of equipment in government blood banking facilities. It also sponsors information, education and communication (IEC) campaign at both national and state level to generate awareness of potential danger of unsafe blood from unlicensed blood banks and professional sellers, and promotes the voluntary blood donation movement.

Every year, exercise by way of workshops, seminars, conferences are being organised by National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), World Health Organisation (WHO), Department of Science, Technology, Government of India (DST) and voluntary organisations to train up the blood donor motivators to embark upon a journey to achieve total voluntary blood programme for the country.

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