MIRAMSHAH, Feb 2: A group of volunteers has started a campaign for establishing a blood bank to provide blood transfusion services to the needy population in the militancy-stricken North Waziristan Agency.

Sameeullah Khan, a tailor by profession, had launched the work about six years ago in Miramshah and registered 1,200 donors till now. He has now decided to expand the network and set up an organisation with the name of 'New Life in North Waziristan Agency'.

Speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday, Mr Khan and other office-bearers of the organisation said that the agency headquarters hospital in Miramshah had a blood bank, but the needy often returned empty handed.

Due to lack of awareness, people did not volunteer to give blood, fearing this would affect their health, Mr Khan said and added that medically every adult healthy person could donate blood every three months and live a healthy life.

He said that creating awareness of health benefits of donating blood was also part of their campaign to make sure that patients got the desired blood groups in emergencies.

The problem of getting blood in emergency had been exacerbated by lack of storage capacity in the government hospitals, he said.

“Whenever patients require blood people make announcements through loudspeakers from mosques, because the facility in the government hospital often remains empty,” said Mr Khan. He said that in some cases non-availability of blood had caused avoidable deaths of women and their newborn babies.

“We have over 1,200 registered volunteers who donate blood to needy people in emergency,” he said and added that volunteers had been providing blood to children suffering from blood-borne diseases in North Waziristan.

Mr Khan said that the political administration had allowed the New Life to set up a blood bank in Miramshah, but they did not have resources to construct building and purchase machinery for safe blood transfusion.

He appealed to the political administration, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor and philanthropists to help the organisation in setting up the blood bank.