Representatives of the West Bengal Voluntary Blood Donors’ Society (WBVBDS) from the four north Bengal districts of Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling came together on Sunday to observe World Blood Donor Day with a regional workshop.
The event was held at the meeting hall of the Jalpaiguri Students’ Health Home.
The workshop was inaugurated by Cooch Behar chief medical officer (health) Himadri Adi, eminent pathologist Amitabh Basu, Jalpaiguri Government Medical College assistant superintendent Gautam Paul and Padma Shri awardee Karimul Haque.
In their addresses, all the guests urged people at large to come forward and donate blood regularly to address the ongoing crisis and help prevent thalassaemia.
A key resolution passed during the workshop was a call for the enactment of a National Blood Transfusion Law, to bring more structure and legal backing to the country’s blood donation and transfusion ecosystem.
The workshop saw the participation of 67 representatives, including 16 women.
As part of the event, three veteran blood donors, Ranjit Mishra with 120 donations, Amitabh Chakraborty with 124 donations, and Dilip Sharma with 116 donations were honoured for their contributions to the cause.
During the workshop, several important demands were raised such as mass scale thalassaemia carrier screenings in schools and colleges, establishment of new blood centres in Mekhliganj and Tufanganj subdivision hospitals and installation of blood component separation units at the Malbazar blood centre in Jalpaiguri as well as similar centres at Mathabhanga and Dinhata in Cooch Behar district and Birpara and Falakata in Alipurduar district.