A blood bank centre in Patna. Telegraph picture

Patna, March 6: Bihar State AIDS Control Society will provide computers to the 39 blood banks registered with it to ensure transparency in their functioning.

The society’s officials said computerisation of the registered blood banks would ensure timely reports on the utilisation of blood units, upload of availability and consumption of blood units and check misuse in donation.

Of the 64 blood banks in the state, 39 are registered with the Bihar State AIDS Control Society, including 36 sadar hospitals and medical colleges and three owned by the Indian Red Cross Society. The rest are private blood banks but are provided technical assistance by the society.

Sanjeev Kumar Sinha, project director, told The Telegraph: “We have decided to provide computers to all the 39 blood banks which are running with our support. The computerisation of the blood banks will help make the system more transparent.”

“The blood banks send us reports from time to time on the utilisation of the blood units stored with them but we do not get these reports on time on several occasions. The online process would make things easier. The blood banks would also have to upload information about the availability and consumption of blood units on our website. If any blood bank is facing a crisis of a particular blood group, it can see check online and contact the bank which can fulfil its requirement,” Sinha added.

Abhay Prasad, additional project director, said: “People who have donated blood at any of the 39 registered blood banks get blood donor cards with which they can collect units of any group from any of the banks. However, the cardholders cannot collect more units of blood than what they have donated. There are chances of a donor misusing the card by collecting more blood though. If we provide computers to the blood banks, records of blood collected by the donors can be kept with the information being updated on our website.”