In a move to boost the reach of the Maharashtra state governments ambitious 'blood on call' initiative further across the state, the ministry of health is soon planning to promote the project across Mumbai and four other select districts as a part of the next phase of this project.

After getting a huge response from the pilot programme which was launched in February this year, a first in the country, the government has already begun the process of adopting this initiative, further in Mumbai and four other districts namely, Gadchiroli, Amravati, Ahmednagar and Parbhani. It is understood that the activities to finalise the functioning of the said blood on call centres are already underway so as to initiate this programme based on the experience of the pilot project. The project which was launched in Satara and Sindhudurg got flying response, prompting the government to further adopt this scheme across the state.

Dr Sanjaykumar Jadhav, assistant director from the Maharashtra State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC), informed that the state government has plans to cover all the districts of Maharashtra within this financial year under the blood on call initiative by bringing in a total of around 200 blood storage centre under its ambit including the 10 centres in Mumbai. The estimated cost of implementing this project by the state government per district ranges at minimum cost of Rs.3 lakh.

Interestingly, the government has already through the Maharashtra SBTC identified and established 10 storage centres within 10 km of range across Mumbai after mapping the city as per its geographic requirements and the population demand to cover the entire city. Whereas, in Satara and Sindhudurg, the storage centres were established at a distance of 40 km based on the population of the area.

According to Dr Jadhav, assistant director, SBTC, Maharashtra,“Through this project we want to ensure timely availability of high quality blood to all the citizens throughout Maharashtra at an affordable rate, so that the patients life can be saved in time. Getting started with this initiative has been a huge challenge for us, especially since we were the first state to carry out such a project in this scale. However, the response that we have received till now have been exhilarating and we hope to maim the same success story across all the districts throughout state.”

Explaining about the blood on call initiative, he stressed that this is a step taken by the state government to address the need of the patients at large, which is why they want to bring the whole state under its ambit so that maximum population from the state can get the desired benefit from this scheme. All that a needy citizen need to do is just call the toll free number provided by the government and register a request for blood, which will be at the earliest, passed on to the registered blood centre close to the patients given location. A representative from the blood centre will then take the blood sample from the patient and then deliver the blood suitable to his or her Rh group at a very affordable price of Rs.450 at the hospital.