Even though many institutions are facing hard times in the face of the current foreign reserve crisis, the blood supply chain to the National Blood Transfusion Service has been available, but in the next few weeks, it will have to function in the midst of a great crisis.

At an event organised in view of the 'World Blood Donor Day' that falls on June 14 every year at the National Blood Transfusion Services, its Director Dr. Lakshman Edirisinghe said, even though the service was facing  a threat during the COVID-19 pandemic situation, no request was made to any hospital authorities or to the specialist doctors to limit the donation of blood.

He said the critical situation that they faced during the pandemic was not even disclosed to anyone, even to the media.

However, the donors and the organisors were generous in making  huge contributions to continue with the service without any shortage.

"We had certain issues with our supply chain management, travel restrictions and with the health regulations and guidelines put forward by the health sector, we managed to provide a continuous service until now," Dr. Edirisinghe said.

Tough decisions have to be made to maintain our limited resources; restriction have been applied to import most of the expensive equipment Therefore, we have to follow the highest levels of practice to manage the service; if not, we would not be able to continue with it, Dr. Edirisinghe added.  (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)