In a great humanitarian gesture to usher in the new year 2019, Punjab Government on Monday announced to provide blood “free of cost” in its all government hospitals from January 1, 2019.
Announcing this, the state Health and Family Welfare Minister Brahm Mohindra said: “As a part of the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s mission ‘Tandarust Punjab’, all the government hospitals across the state will provide blood and blood components free of cost to the patients.”
Not only shall be blood provided free of cost, it will also be ensured that the blood is available round the clock in all the hospitals, the Minister added.
Mohindra said that the move would benefit thousands of patients across the State who earlier had to pay processing charges of Rs 300 per unit of blood in Civil Hospitals and Rs 500 per unit in Government Medical Colleges.
“From now, blood and blood components like Packed RBC, fresh frozen plasma, cryoprecipitate, platelets rich plasma, platelet concentrate will be given free of cost to all the patients,” he said, while adding that the vital decision was taken for the poor and downtrodden section of the society.
The blood, he pointed out, is the first important requirement in case of the road accidents or the patients which are undergoing surgeries.
He said that there are in total 116 blood banks in Punjab, out of which, 46 are being operated by Government, six by military besides 64 are being run by private entities.
Reaffirming the State Government’s commitment to ensure best medical facilities for its citizens, Brahm Mohindra said that in the last year, 2.26 lakh units of blood were collected by the government blood banks.
“Now, with this move of providing blood and blood components free of cost, the entire burden in terms of finances would be borne by the Punjab Government,” he said.
Mohindra added that the state Health Department, to further streamline the health services, had launched a web portal ‘e-Raktkosh’, which would be a guiding source for all the needy persons to check the availability of particular blood group and blood components and its quantity in a particular blood bank.