Though people are coming forward to donate blood, there is always a perennial shortage of rare blood groups and negative blood types.
“For instance, there is not a single person with the OH blood type (also called Bombay blood type) on our list. We need more people donating blood and enrolling in the list so as to ensure there is no shortage of blood for the patients,” said Father Muller Medical College and Hospital blood bank officer Kirana Bailoor.
She was speaking at a function to mark the World Blood Donors Day at the hospital here on Wednesday.
At the one-day camp, the hospital planned to collect nearly 60 units of blood. Stressing on the need for more people coming forward to donate blood, she said more than 9,000 persons donate blood at the hospital annually.
Among those who exhorted students to donate blood was Mario Saldanha, who claims to have donated blood 140 times.
His journey started when he was 18 years old after a visit to a hospital put him in touch with the child of a poor family who needed blood urgently, he recalled.
Since then, for over more than three-and-a-half decades, Mr. Saldanha has been donating blood without fail on four occasions a year – all of them to mark the birthdays of his loved ones.
Patrick Rodrigues, director, Father Muller Charitable Institution, said 800 women die daily across the world from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth – all of which could be avoided with medical care and availability of blood.
At the function, 10 regular donors from the hospital were felicitated.
