An agreement was signed on Friday between Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) and German KFW Bank for setting up Islamabad Blood centre. The agreement was signed by Secretary CADD Hassan Iqbal and Country Director German KFW Bank, Wolfgang Mollers. Minister of State for CADD, Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, and Project Director, Safe Blood Transfusion Programme (SBTP) Professor Hasan Abbas Zaheer was also present on the occasion.
Speaking on the occasion, the minister highly appreciated the German government support for the blood project and said that access to safe and quality blood was a key priority of the government in the health sector. With the development of the modern blood centre in Islamabad through this agreement funding, the citizens of the federal capital will soon have a model transfusion service delivery system. He informed that in the vicinity of the new Blood Centre, the government is building a large tertiary care hospital which will also benefit from the Blood Centre. He said that the Safe Blood Transfusion Programme was working with great commitment and dedication to implement this project and to promote the culture of voluntary blood donations in Islamabad.
The target is to have the new Blood Centre completely reliant on the voluntary and regular blood donations that are the safest blood donors. This will also ensure that the patients are not burdened with the task of providing blood donors. Through the phase-I implementation of this project the standard of blood transfusion services in the country has already significantly improved.
Country Director, German KFW Bank, thanked the minister on taking special interest in the implementation of this important project. He congratulated the minister on the agreement signing through which a modern Blood Centre will be developed for the residents of Islamabad. He said that the highest standards of construction will be maintained and latest modern equipment will be provided for this Centre and for the hospital blood banks in Islamabad.
He said that similar regional blood centres and hospital blood banks have been successfully developed and equipped in the first phase of the project all over the country and now the German government is supporting the second phase of this project to expand the scope and coverage of the project in Pakistan.
Project Director, SBTP, Professor Zaheer informed that the German funded Islamabad Regional Blood Centre will be constructed in a central location in Islamabad in the vicinity of new hospital, health institutes, colleges and universities. The centre will sensitise and mobilise voluntary blood donors and collect their blood. The collected blood will be processed, tested, screened and blood components prepared and stored according to quality assured systems.
The prepared blood components will be supplied to all the public and private sector hospitals in Islamabad. The existing blood banks in the Islamabad hospitals will be re-modelled and transformed into patient oriented blood banks who will only collect the prepared components and store them until utilised by the patients.