In spite of the fact that there are great advancements in healthcare sector, science has not been able to gift mankind a way to replicate and produce blood till now. It’s need can only be fulfilled through the life-saving activity of blood donation. Giving encouragement to donate blood has been a great social activity throughout the length and breadth of the nation and in Arunachal too, there is no dearth of this great act of humanity, conducted all throughout the year with active participation by all sections of society, especially youths. World Red Cross Day’s observation at Raj Bhavan also saw voluntary donation of blood by a large number of people of all ages, signifying the active presence of this exemplary humanitarian culture in Arunachalee society.  

Need for blood is universal, cutting across countries, caste, creed, religion or economic status and it will be difficult to find out a person who hasn’t felt the need of blood at some point of his or her life. When it comes to accessibility of safe blood, a major imbalance is always noticeable between developing and industrialized countries and is still a headache for the healthcare systems all across developing world, home to over 80 percent of world’s population. In India the problem is severe particularly due to the sheer size of population with 60 million trauma induced surgeries, 230 million major operations, 331 million cancer related procedures like chemotherapy and 10 million pregnancy related treatments performed every year on average, all requiring blood transfusion. This is besides patients being treated for thalassemia, haemophilia and anemia, for whom requirement of large quantities of blood is constant.

When it comes to blood donation, the picture is uneven from state to state. While in some states, there is accumulation of excess than what is required, there are other states where shortfall is huge. The primary causes are the lack of knowledge about the process and the various unfounded myths that people still continue to harbour. On the whole, the country has a steady annual shortfall of 10% of its blood requirements which comes to more than 12 lakh units. Also, wastage of collected blood units arising out of expiry of shelf life is quite common and a grey area which can only be solved by better coordination between the surplus and deficit states.

For Arunachal, which still faces an yearly deficit of more than 10,000 units, the news that three new blood banks are coming up at Seppa, Khonsa and Longding is no doubt heartening. And this great culture of magnanimity and empathy  should get more stronger in state to ensure  that blood banks never get dry and smiles never fly away from the distressing faces.