12 May 2010
By Sumanta Ray Chadhuri
Kolkata, India
Voluntary blood donation, traditionally considered a fulfilling task, seems to be losing its appeal. Statistics prepared by the Association of Voluntary Blood Donors’ Forum (AVBDF) on the percentage of voluntary blood donation to the total blood
collection in individual states during the last one year, shows a rapid decline in the number of donors throughout India.
Only five states have achieved the record where the percentage of voluntary blood donation to total collection stands above 80%.
Tripura has ranked first in the list with an excellent figure of 95.3%. West Bengal, which had traditionally been either in the first or second position, has been outranked by Tamil Nadu, which came second with a percentage figure of 91.9%. West Bengal, with a figure of 85.1% stood third. Punjab ranked fourth with 84.9%, while Maharashtra was on the fifth position with 84.8%.
According to sources from the AVBDF, although the Supreme Court banned professional blood–selling way back in 1998, a number of private blood banks were indulging in this illegal process of purchasing blood in a clandestine manner.
“In the books, they show that they obtained the blood on exchange basis. But reality they were purchased by alluring poor people with money. We had been for quite some time demanding strict monitoring of the blood collection process of these private blood banks,” a AVBDF associate said.
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