Blood donation gives, a proud feeling of touching someone’s life in such a beautiful way. Its an experience that no words can define. You have to donate blood yourself to find out. By keeping the blood line flowing, you will greatly contribute towards a healthier, happier society. Do remember, any one may require blood any time. Including ourselves and our dear ones. You also benefit in other ways by donating blood. It reduces the chances of ischemic heart diseases (beginning of heart problems) as frequent donations reduce the accumulated and unwanted iron load from the body. Your blood donation will also get you your blood insurance from us.
We believe in professionalism i.e., high standards of personal conduct, character and approach to the cause. We sincerely strive to bring in needed professionalism in blood banking in the society so that the society gets the best it deserves.
That is impossible. Only sterile disposables are used to collect your blood. These disposables can be used only one time. This totally eliminates any remote chance of catching any disease from blood donation.
Eligible donors (any body between 18 to 60 years of age and leading a healthy life) with weight above 50 kgs. can donate up to 450 ml of blood. Your body can replenish this volume within 24 hours.
As you know, blood is a life saving medicine, which works wonders in certain medical treatments, and life threatening situations. It is an emergency medicine. Our society is today threatened by scarcity of blood. The only source of blood right now is human being.
This issue has got further complexes by professional donors, who donate blood for money. These donors have contributed towards rapid spread of killer diseases like AIDS, Hepatitis B & Hepatitis C in the society. WHO strongly recommends the source of blood as only from a regular voluntary blood donor. Your regular donation will go a long way in salvaging the situation.
Anything, but preferably something. Eating light snacks and a drink (nonalcoholic) before blood donation makes you psychologically more comfortable.
Giving blood is a very simple and straight forward process. On arrival at a blood drive, you will be asked to fill a few details on a donor form. Your medical history will be taken by a medical personnel in an area which provides adequate privacy. We routinely take a small drop of blood to ensure that you aren’t anemic. After you pass this simple medical screening process, you will be escorted to a blood donation area. The actual blood donation takes about 10 minutes followed by a little rest and refreshments.
Your blood goes to a modern blood bank – Prathama Blood Center. Within 6 hours of Blood collection its processing starts at Prathama Blood Centre. It is separated into components viz. Red Cells, White Cells, Plasma & Platelets. These Blood components are made available to Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Hospitals, Govt. Hospitals, Nursing Homes. Medical setups, which do not have blood storage facilities, send their samples to us for cross matching following which blood is sent to them directly. All this is to ensure fastest response to the patient’s need. This is how each time you donate blood you save up to 4 lives.
In modern medicine there is no room for whole blood. Developed countries have switched over to blood components for more than 20 years. Unfortunately in India still 95% of the blood is used as whole blood. By making blood components, all the useful parts of blood can be used. In whole blood, platelets die and clotting factors become ineffective and the patient receives unwanted and ineffective components.
Automatic and highly sensitive Robotic blood testing set up is used to test each and every unit of blood for HIV Virus (AIDS), Hepatitis B & C virus (Jaundice) Malaria Parasite, Syphilis and also blood groups. Bar Code systems, fully integrated computer network, real time information processing makes our lab only of its kind in India. This lab ensures highest level of blood safety to each unit of blood. Thanks to robotic machines the lab technicians also have minimal contact with the blood, which ensures their safety from blood transmitted disease.
Prathama Blood Centre is run on a “ Not for Profit” but self sustaining basis. There is a service charge levied on blood that is distributed. This service charge is essential for meeting cost of raw material, testing, processing, providing for depreciation and administration expenses. This will also give Prathama an opportunity to undertake fundamental research in the field of transfusion medicine. Meanwhile to take care of people from poor economic status, 50 % of blood components which go to municipal corporation hospitals are free or at reduced service charges. Prathama is committed to up lift the standards of blood banking and in turn the quality of Life of the common man in our society.
Drink some liquid like tea, cold drink, juice, etc. to replenish fluid and eat some snacks. All this will be available for you at the blood donation site.
