Blood Donor Management Training Workshop in Mirpur, Pakistan 2022 June

 

A workshop on Blood Donor Management was conducted in Mirpur, Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), Pakistan on June 13-14, 2022.

The workshop was conducted by Mirpur Regional Blood Centre, Department of Pathology and Transfusion Medicine, Divisional Headquarters Teaching Hospital Mirpur in collaboration with ISBT. The workshop was organized to strengthen blood donor management which is identified as a critical need of the AJK region. The meeting participants included stakeholders working as blood donor managers, donor motivators, medical technologists, trainee haematologists and transfusion specialists.

The training provided current information on the essential components of blood donor management including infrastructure requirements for blood donor management, establishing and maintaining a blood donor base, donor recruitment and retention strategies, safe blood collection techniques, blood donor counselling, referral and care, human resources management, information technology, and ethical considerations in blood donor management. The participants also deliberated on recommendations and future plans to improve the blood donor management system and practices in the AJK region, especially in the DHQ Teaching Hospital Blood Bank which has been upgraded as a Regional Blood Centre in Phase II of the National Blood Transfusion Programme. This was a WHO standard course on donor management. National experts who have been trained as Master Trainers by WHO regional office facilitated the workshop. The WHO training material was adapted and made suitable for local needs especially to address specific issues.

The workshop was evaluated through a structured questionnaire (evaluation form) which was filled in by all the participants anonymously. Generally, the participants appreciated the workshop topics and the facilitators’ delivery of knowledge and requested longer and more regular capacity-building workshops. Pre and post-course assessments were done to have a systematic collection and analysis of information to improve participants’ learning. The participants were provided with a questionnaire with 50 multiple-choice questions at the beginning and at the end of training. Overall, the knowledge after the post-course assessment was raised from 45% to 69%. 

The second day of the workshop was world blood donor day, i.e. June 14. A specially designed cake (see photo's) was prepared in this regard and participants were informed about the importance of the WBDD.  

Dr. Amir Aziz, Medical Superintendent, DHQ Teaching Hospital, Mirpur in his concluding remarks appreciated the ISBT support to conduct the subject training workshop. He emphasized the participants to implement the donor management skills and knowledge, in their respective blood banks.

The report was authored by Akhlaaq Wazeer.