Sankalp India Foundation started the New Year of the Initiative for Better Blood Banking by organising a training session and meeting for the various blood bank officers, technicians and staff nurses at NIMHANS.
The agenda items for the program were:
1.Post donation complication handling and recording
2 Commonly made mistakes in blood donation drives
Proposed disaster response network for blood banks - an overview
20 members of the blood banking fraternity attended the event at the seminar hall in NIMHANS even as several staff members had to drop out due to MCI inspections in their respective institutes.
The sessions started with an open house experience sharing session about post donation complications. Several participants shared the situations they had witnessed and also the problem they had faced in handling post donation emergency situation. This set the group right for the training module which was delivered by Dr Sundar. Even as a formal training module was there, Dr Sundar ensured that there were live discussions and points of importance and critical shortcomings of our current processes were identified.
The following things came out even as all of us learnt the details of identification, treatment and recording of complications:.
I) ROOM CONDITIONS: there is a need to
formally study the room conditions for blood donation drives and their
correlation to rate of reactions
II) CPR: The need to train the staffs which attends drives to learn CPR was felt. Shortly a session focussed on CPR will be organised.
III) OXYGEN: It was realised that while oxygen cylinders sometimes are available, there is a need for systematically keeping not just the cylinders but also other related equipment on a standby at the site of the blood donation camp.
IV) AMBU BAG: Dr Sundar organised for a demonstration of an Ambu bag for several of us who were unaware of how it is to be used.
V) DOUBLE PRICKS: Inferring from the past experiences, it was commonly agreed upon that as far as possible the blood bank should avoid a second prick to the donor. In case it is ever done, it should be done with a prior consent of the donor.
VI) EMERGENCY DRUGS: The participants were told about the various emergency drugs, their usage and precautions to be taken while using them.
One thing which came out clearly in the
discussions was there is a very strong connects between the pre-donation
counselling and the reactions. Everyone expressed willingness to ensure more
robust and wholesome screening not just by using the questionnaire but also by
asking directed questions. There were some rich discussions on individual
instances of reactions and what best could have been done to handle them.
The module on post donation complications was followed by that on commonly made mistakes in blood donation drive. Extracting information from 150 drives which have been organised with Sankalp in recent past, Lalith Parmar shared what are the most common issues that are faced and how to prevent them in future. Most notable discussion was that on the standards to be adopted for screening of donors especially when it comes to alcohol intake, menstruation and smoking. The blood banks had severe difference of opinions on the topic. It was decided that a separate meeting of the blood bank officers will be called to try and arrive at a common acceptable-to-all standard.
Beside other things Lalith also pointed out the major role that the technicians and the staff nurses plan in donor motivation and retention. He highlighted how the interaction with the donor on the bed side makes a huge difference to the possibility of the donor coming back regularly to donate. The importance of soft skills in blood donation drives on the part of each member of the blood bank and the volunteer was emphasised.
The last session for the day was the presentation of a draft of the proposed disaster response plan for Karnataka. Rajat Agarwal shared a wireframe of inter institutional disaster response strategy which could be used as the basic draft for the formulation of the final policy. In the wake of the AMRI fire in Kolkata and the recent fire in a hospital in Bangalore, the participants felt an urgent need to build a plan on these lines. The plan which was appreciated by a smaller audience will now be taken up in a follow-up meeting where participation from all blood banks of the geography will be sought.
The expression on the faces of the participants after 4 hours of intense learning said it all. The session was found to be extremely useful by the participants. The participants also agreed to ensure that the leanings are implemented in their own institutes.
“ I appreciate your efforts in conducting this traning which covered lot of techical things and helped us.the motivation with which you are doing this is encouraging as we who have been in blood banking system have not had such trainings.I also request you to come and train our doctors within the hospital”opined Sister Elsi from IGICH
Sankalp is very happy to organise small directed no-frills technical sessions for the blood banking fraternity to ensure effective, relevant continued learning. We thank all the participants and Dr Sundar in particular for making the program a huge success.