‘Ama Odisha’ sets new blood collection record in 2013

OST Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jan 3:

Ama Odisha has achieved outstanding success in its voluntary blood donation campaign in the state in 2013, notching up a record collection of 52,713 units of blood through its 1001 blood donation camps organized in all 314 blocks of the state spread over 30 districts.
In its eighth year, the organisation has added five more places – Anandpur, Rairangpur, Bhanjanagar, Bhubaneswar and Rourkela – to the list of 30 Ama Odisha districts it had by dividing these areas into eight zones.

The Angul zone has recorded the highest collection of blood with 8821 units, followed by 8682 units in the Cuttack zone, 8647 in Bhubaneswar, 7811 in Sambalpur, 7429 in Baleswar, 5583 in Brahmapur, 3764 in Jeypore and 1976 units in Rourkela zone.

In the Bhubaneswar zone, Bhubaneswar city has recorded the highest collection of 6228 units of blood. It has also achieved remarkable success in Rourkela collecting 1151 units of blood in the steel city.

District-wise, Angul has the highest collection of 5494 units followed by Baleswar (4460), Ganjam (4344), Cuttack (4110), Mayurbhanj (2014), Sambalpur (1929), Jajpur (1915), Koraput (1882), Dhenkanal (1750), Keonjhar (1567), Kendrapada (1561), Bargarh (1465) and Balangir (1279).

It is worthwhile here to mention that in view of the acute shortage of blood in the state, Ama Odisha had launched a weeklong voluntary blood donation campaign on October 25 in 2006 and collected 9250 units of blood from 181 camps.

Encouraged by the response, the organization in 2007 decided to continue such programmes throughout the year with an objective of not allowing any person in Odisha to die without blood.

The organisation had collected 15557 units of blood in 2007, 17570 units in 2008, 25273 units in 2009, 27008 units in 2010, 48061 units in 2011 and 450126 units in 2012. In 2013, it created two records: collecting 52713 units of blood and organizing over 1, 000 camps throughout the state for the first time.

The remarkable success of Ama Odisha has been made possible by the active cooperation by various government and non-government educational institutions including ITER, KIIT University, CV Raman Engineering College, Gandhi Group of Institutions, industries including Vedanta Aluminium, Bhushan Steel and ACC Cement, banks including Axis Bank and HDFC and several Insurance companies.

Chairman of Ama Odisha Soumya Ranjan Patnaik has expressed his profound gratitude to all district and block reporters of Sambad, all staff of Kanak TV, Radio Choklate, Sambad School of Media and Culture, KMBB Engineering College, members of Ama Odisha as well as all blood donors for their active cooperation and participation in the endeavour.

With a target to extend its blood donation programme to all the panchayats from 2014, Ama Odisha has launched its first programme at Purusottampur (Paga) panchayat of Salepur block in Cuttack district on January 1.