Blood Bank

Product Description

blood donation: foundation of a safe and sufficient blood supply
Blood transfusion is an indispensable component of health care. It contributes to saving millions of lives each year in both routine and emergency situations, permits increasingly complex medical and surgical interventions and dramatically improves the life expectancy and quality of life of patients with a variety of acute and chronic conditions.

Patients who require transfusion as part of their clinical management have the right to expect that sufficient blood will be available to meet their needs and to receive the safest blood possible. However, many patients still die or suffer unnecessarily because they do not have access to safe blood transfusion. The timely availability of safe blood and blood products is essential in all health facilities in which transfusion is performed, but in many developing and transitional countries there is a widespread shortfall between blood requirements and blood supplies.

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Blood transfusion in health care
Many medical advances that have improved the treatment of serious illness and injuries have increased the need for blood transfusion for patients’ survival, to support them through recovery or to maintain their health. Surgery, trauma and cancers, for all of which there is a high probability of the need for blood transfusion, are replacing communicable diseases as leading causes of death. About 234 million major operations are performed worldwide every year, with 63 million people undergoing surgery for traumatic injuries, 31 million more for treating cancers and another 10 million for pregnancy-related complications.7-8

National requirements for blood are, in part, determined by the capacity of the country’s health care system and its coverage of the population. In developed countries with advanced health systems, the demand for blood continues to rise to support increasingly sophisticated medical and surgical procedures, trauma care and the management of blood disorders. An increase in ageing populations requiring more medical care has also led to increased requirements for blood.

In countries where diagnostic facilities and treatment options are more limited, the majority of transfusions are prescribed for the treatment of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, severe childhood anaemia, trauma and the management of congenital blood disorders. Haemorrhage, for example, accounts for over 25% of the 530 000 maternal deaths each year; 99% of these are in the developing world. Access to safe blood could help to prevent up to one quarter of maternal deaths each year and blood transfusion has been identified as one of the eight life-saving functions that should be available in a first-referral level healthcare facility providing comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care.9

Children are particularly vulnerable to shortages of blood in malarious areas because of their high requirement for transfusion arising from severe life-threatening anaemia resulting from malaria, often exacerbated by malnutrition. In 2008, 109 countries were endemic for malaria, 45 within the WHO African region. In 2006, there were an estimated 247 million malaria cases among 3.3 billion people at risk, causing nearly a million deaths; 91% of malaria deaths were in Africa and 85% were of children under five years of age.10

Road traffic accidents kill 1.2 million people and injure or disable between 20 million and 50 million more a year, a large proportion of whom require transfusion during the first 24 hours of treatment; 90% of deaths occur in developing and transitional countries. Road traffic injuries are predicted to become the third largest contributor to the global burden of disease with an anticipated increase of 65% in road traffic deaths globally and 80% in low and medium HDI countries.11 The timely availability of blood at emergency health care facilities is one of the determinants of patient survival.

About 300 000 infants are born each year with thalassaemia and sickle-cell disease and need regular blood transfusion.12 While the prevalence of these disorders of haemoglobin is unknown, there is a high requirement for regular transfusion in affected regions, particularly the Mediterranean region, Pakistan.

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Sufficiency and security of national blood supplies
Blood transfusion services face a dual challenge of ensuring both a sufficient supply and the quality and safety of blood and blood products for patients whose lives or wellbeing depend on blood transfusion. Blood supplies need to be constantly replenished since whole blood and blood components have a limited shelf-life. Most countries battle to meet current requirements while at the same time responding to increasing clinical demands for blood.

Developed countries with well-structured health systems and blood transfusion services based on voluntary blood donation are generally able to meet the demand for blo

Blood donor programme
Fragmented systems for blood banking that lack coordination, particularly in developing countries, rarely have the capacity or resources needed to build effective donor education programmes; without donor education, there are limited opportunities to attract adequate and consistent numbers of voluntary donors to reduce the reliance of the health care system on family/replacement donation. Such fragmented systems also lack the wider infrastructure that enables blood and blood products to be exchanged between hospitals or moved to parts of the country where there are shortages. Studies in the Pakistan region indicate that poor blood bank infrastructures and operations and poor donor care are major hurdles to both voluntary donation and donor retention.32

If you would like to know more about sending charity Blood to Udero Lal Welfare , or you would like
to help Udero Lal Welfare help people in need in another way, do not hesitate to get in touch
with us by phone on +92 335 2699237. You can also contact us on Whatsapp via +92 335 2699237
or email us at info@uderolal.com if you prefer. We would be thrilled to hear
from you!