Haflong : The lone blood
bank in Dima Hasao district downed shutters today on the orders of the
drug controller under the directorate of health services, Assam.
The order (HSD/19/BB/97/4581-584) was
issued on September 9 after an inspection by a team comprising a drug
inspector and two members of Assam AIDS Control Society in June this
year.
The ground for the shutdown, according to
the order, is the inadequate size of the blood bank. The drug controller
said the blood bank was only around 37 square metres, against the
mandatory requirement of 100 square metres as mentioned in the Drugs and
Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945. The blood bank
is located in Haflong civil hospital, about 309km from Guwahati.
The drug controller has been inspecting
the blood banks in Assam after five persons were administered
HIV-positive blood at Mangaldoi civil hospital in Darrang district in
June last year, sparking protests and violence.
The order has “shocked” the people of Dima
Hasao district, as they would now have to depend on the nearest blood
bank in Silchar, 108km from Haflong.
Prasanta Das, a businessman who admitted
his wife at the Haflong hospital for delivery, said he would take the
health department to task if anything untoward happened to her.
Haflong civil hospital superintendent Dr
Harpal Singh Suri said, “We need an average of 150 units of blood per
month and it is impossible to send all patients to Silchar given the
poor road condition.”
He requested the drug controller to
reconsider the decision to shut down the blood bank. Suri said another
blood bank was being constructed at the hospital under the National
Health Mission but could not say when it would be completed.