Illustrative image (Source: VNA) HCM City (VNA) – The blood bank of the Ho Chi Minh City Blood Transfusion and Haematology Hospital is running low on blood stock for the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) festival, said Director of the hospital Phu Chi Dung.
Doctor Dung said that the hospital’s blood bank supplies blood to over 100 hospitals in the city, with an average 800-1,000 patients needing blood transfusion each day.
The demand for blood in the city has increased by 20-30 percent compared to last year as the number of patients flocking to the city from other localities is rising.
While Tet is only 8 weeks away, the bank still lacks about 13,000 blood packs (each pack containing 250-450ml) to ensure supply, or 1,500 new blood packs each week.
However, Dr Dung is concerned that the bank will not receive enough blood as many districts and wards have stopped calling for blood donation after reaching the targets for this year, and will only resume the campaign in January 2019.
He said that he will propose the city to raise the blood donation targets of districts, and call for locals to donate their blood more times in a year.
Currently, the ratio of people donating their blood for two times or more a year in Vietnam is only over 1 percent of the total donors.
The Blood Transfusion and Haematology Hospital will also ask the municipal Department of Health to expand the blood bank capacity to 750,000-1 million blood units per year from the current 250,000 units.-VNA
VNA
