‘Blood donation campaign should be regular’

BY A STAFF REPORTER,Kathmandu, Mar. 10: Minister for Communications and Information Technology Rekha Sharma said that blood donation should be launched as a campaign.

Inaugurating 2nd International Conference on Blood Donation organised by the Blood Donors Association Nepal (BLODAN) in Kathmandu on Saturday, Minister Sharma said that continuous campaign should be conducted from governmental and non-governmental sectors to increase the number of voluntary blood donors. 

She pledged that the government would emphasise creating awareness on blood donation by adding blood donor awareness materials to public service advertisements and making it mandatory in other public information and messages.

She also pointed out that the public needed to pay certain charges while receiving blood despite donors providing blood free of cost and said that the government would arrange for a budget to do away with such charges.

Stating that blood was necessary even in normal situations, she said that since Nepal was at risk of disasters, emergency blood management should be integrated with overall disaster management.

She said that the organisations like BLODAN and Red Cross had been playing an important role in managing blood and such 

activities should be operated as continuous campaigns at the national level.