Marwari Hospitals, a Guwahati-based hospital, launched a mobile blood donation van in the city on Saturday.
This has been stated to be a first of its kind van launched by a private hospital in the Northeast.
Prior to Marwari Hospitals, Gauhati Medical College Hospital (GMCH), a state government-run medical college and hospital, launched mobile blood donation vehicle.
It is expected that the mobile blood donation van would benefit those who want to donate blood but face problem in coming to the hospital for donating the same.
It will also help regular blood donors.
“The mobile blood donation van will move from place to place for organising blood donation camps,” the hospital said in a statement.
Sarat Kumar Jain, the president of Marwari Hospitals said, “Marwari Hospitals has been offering healthcare services at affordable rates for more than 105 years. The hospital was popularly known as Maternity Hospital since 198. Since 2002 it started offering multi-speciality services.”
Jain said the hospital provides blood to 32-35 healthcare institutes in and around the city.
“The existing blood bank of the hospital is a 100% component blood bank and during the Covid pandemic, Marwari Hospitals supplied around 7,150 blood components in 2020 which is 42% more than 2019,” he informed.
He thanked CDE Asian Limited Kolkota for financial support in procuring the mobile donation van under their CSR initiative.
He added that in blood bank services, the hospital is providing 100% discount to all Thalassaemia patients and 25% discount to all patients admitted in the general ward.
Jain said the management of Marwari Hospitals is planning to undertake the following projects with priorities for strengthening the blood bank facility.
These projects include – Addition of Apheresis facility (plateletpheresis and plasmapheresis); Development of Advanced immune-haematology lab with facilities for antibody screening, identification and titration; With the increase in workload to introduce automated cell separator and one more refrigerated centrifuge for blood component separation; To add a sterile connecting device for paediatric aliquot preparation and Transfusion centre for Thalassaemia patients and others.
Sanjay Singh, vice-president of CDE Asia Limited, Kolkata, also spoke on the occasion.
The other dignitaries present in the programme were blood bank chairman DP Bajaj, vice-president of Marwari Hospitals OP Lahoty and treasurer MK Agarwal.
DP Bajaj delivered a vote of thanks.