KARACHI, Dec 27: The provincial government has approved the health department’s proposal of establishing centralised blood transfusion services in Sindh, officials told Dawn on Wednesday.

The officials said that after the formal approval of the plan, the health authority would establish five centralised blood bank in five big cities of the province — Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur and Larkana.

Besides, five regional blood transfusion services would be established in the interior of Sindh and the areas for their bases would soon be identified.

According to the plan, these large blood banks and regional blood transfusion services will be interconnected and connected to the Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority headquarters in Karachi.

This plan will ensure the facilities of blood separation and segregation of platelets and plasma at the major teaching hospitals.

Dr Zahid Ansari, secretary of the SBTA, said the implementation of establishing central blood transfusion services would be made after Eidul Azha. He said initially Rs11 million has been allocated for the purchase of equipment including the facilities such as mega-unit, cell-separator, etc.

“We have a target of two years in which we will train 80 pathologists, 400 doctors, and 200 blood technicians. In this master training programme all the techniques concerning screening of blood and blood separation would be taught,” said Dr Ansari.

He said this training would be held at the officially approved government and private blood banks.