The State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC), Maharashtra, will be establishing blood component separation units in all its eight regional centers spread across Maharashtra.

According to Dr. Sanjay Jadhav, Assistant Director, Directorate of Health Services, Maharashtra, these centers in Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Thane, Akola and Nagpur, would be provided with an individual component unit required for blood separation, by December this year.

While work at Pune and Kolhapur has already been finished, the remaining centers would be made operational by December this year, confirmed Jadhav.

Dr Jadhav said that each unit would be built at a cost of around Rs 40 lakh, the funds for which would be made provisional by the State Blood Transfusion Council with assistance from the National Aids Control Organisation, Delhi. He further said that the equipments mandatory for the units has already been procured.

Commenting on the need for such an upgraded facility, Dr Jadhav said, "There are very few blood centres across the state which possess component separation units which are usually required for segregating blood into its by-products, namely; fresh frozen plasma, concentrated red cells and platelets. Other blood banks that could not avail this facility often had to get their blood separated by sourcing it to other blood banks. This scarcity prompted the State Blood Transfusion Council to set up an individual component unit in atleast each of the eight regional centres that come under its jurisdiction."

Adding further he says, "In states like Akola and Nagpur where such a facility was never available before, people had to travel far and wide to avail of the component separation facilities. Now with such units stationed at different regions, it would save time and labor and could even be afforded by one and all."

With the setting up of these units, Dr Jadhav is positive that it would avoid the needless migration of population to the city, thereby bringing about a decline in the workload usually experienced by city hospitals.