Visit to Bhuj for Blood Bank project on 9th Apr ’02

Report by Priti Patil

Highlights

Met with Dr. Himat Morabia, his Son Himanshu Morabia and family in afternoon.

Attended RSM’s (Ranchhodray Satsang Mandal’s) trustee committee meeting, held on 9^th Apr at 7pm

Introduced to and discussed with:

Umiyashankar Gor, Advocate – President
Chhagan Patel – Vice President
Dr. Himat Morbia – Secretary
Kantilal T. Thakkar – Treasurer
Shivji Thakkar, Advocate (was a collector before retiring)
K. C. Sanghavi, Civil Engineer
Shailesh Gor, Construction Contractor
Kishor Booch, Sr. Advocate
C. D. Pandya, Advocate
Valji Thakkar, Advocate
Ramji Rathod, Taaluka Vikaas Adhikari
Dr. Nautam Gor, Paediatrician
Suresh Maheta, Pathologist
Dr. M. J. Dilliwala, Eye surgeon
Vanraaj Kotak, General Physician 

·        First installment of VRTI’s donation has been deposited in their bank account

·        Bhuj municipality have only recently started giving building permits

·        There were two blood bank building designs to be selected from, and the design was not finalized

·        The plot, on which this building is to be built, already has very small damaged building, which was being used as blood bank some time back.  This was associated with the Red Cross Society and has been closed since several years for lack of personal resources and scientific equipments.

Introduction

This project is to build a Blood Bank that shall serve the people and regions affected by earthquake.  This will be one of its kinds in this region of Kutch and shall touch lives of thousand of people of Kutch.  The center is going to be constructed in Bhuj, Kutch and will cater to people in villages around Bhuj with a radius of around 40 miles. This project is expected to benefit over 1000 people on an annual basis.

Besides funding the construction and infrastructure required for Blood Bank, VIDE shall be supporting mandatory screening of donated blood for initial two years totaling to around 2000 bottles of blood.  The total cost of this project comes to USD 65,500 of which USD 51,000 shall go into construction of Blood Bank building and other infrastructure equipments like Centrifuge, Freezers etc. required for Blood Bank.  Rest of the money shall be utilized in mandatory screening of donated blood for initial two years of Blood Bank operation.  First installment of Rs.11 lakh reached them in February 2002.

Project Status

At the end of first meeting with the secretary, Dr. Morbia, following were impressions:

·        Dr. Morbia is the driving force behind this project, but is involved with many different political and social associations and he is too busy to do what is needed for this project.  (This project is not the first priority for him, and we could not find any active member for whom this project is the first priority.)

·        Project progress is very slow and we need to understand the reasons for the same

·        There were lots of “family” volunteers involved and the project may fail if these professional family members become too busy

·        There was a blood bank on the same plot earlier, and has been closed down since several years… Reasons for closing down were not clearly listed and plan to avoid such failure this time around was not presented.

·        RSM does not have any other constructive activities that could be examined for the dedication of committee members.

·        There were two plans almost ready, but final selection is to be done in a meeting.

·        We tried to find out from other sources, and confirmed that there is no blood bank in the surrounding areas of Bhuj, and it is a dire need of the patients from that area.

·        Even though this is very important project for the area, I did not hear about any efforts to get some funding from the government.  (And, Dr. Morbia is secretary of the Congress party in Bhuj)

Hence, we decided to attend their meeting on the same day evening at Bhuj.  After attending that meeting, though many of our concerns were not nullified, the ultimate objective of the group was clear, and following are further impressions:

·        Major board members of RSM are mature, well settled professionals and have the goal of self actualization by doing something for “betterment of community”

·        Mr. Umiyashankar Gor, 95 yrs. is the main driving person, who wishes to realize his dream of having a blood bank in Bhuj since many years, and requests help from all these people to fulfill that goal.

·        Saw both the plans, and we too realized that none of them could be accepted without any change.  They decided to finalize on the plan soon.

·        They also decided in the meeting about building contractor details.  (We would have liked them to go through some formal process for selection of contractor, but recognized that it is not possible)

·        Currently short-term plan of getting the building ready is their goal.  Still there was no long term plan to make the blood bank self-sustainable

·        Received a copy of the ‘by laws’ of this association 

Conclusion and Recommendations

·        This is a very important project from the perspective of medical facilities need of the geographical area of Bhuj and surrounding villages in the radius of 40 miles.

·        Bhuj is a central place that has many other advanced medical tests (like CT scan) and treatment facilities (many hospitals etc) etc., hence it makes sense to locate the blood bank in Bhuj.

·        Though people involved in RSM are too busy, and there is no one person for whom, this project is top priority, at least involved people are well meaning.

·        We need to help them set intermediate milestones to be achieved to measure the progress of this project and monitor the progress in timely manner.  Like – ask them to define sub-goals and dead lines, ask to appoint a dedicated project co-coordinator (may be we can fund it), follow up on the problematic component of the project and send monthly reports instead of quarterly reports.  (Avoid the pitfalls that killed earlier blood bank)