’Upbeat mood’ at DK-Red Cross AGM - DC roots for fresh ’vision’
Mangalore Today News Network
Mangaluru, Oct 03, 2015: The AGM of the district unit of IRCS - Indian Red Cross Society, held on October 2, chaired by DK DC and district IRCS unit President Adoor B Ibrahim was a markedly ’upbeat’ affair. It had better attendance, more indepth enthusiastic discussion and participation than seen before which precipitated some land mark plans for a better future ahead for the Red Cross movement in DK.
The high light of the meet was that a ’vision committee’ was formed to take up development activities for the next three years for the district unit of Indian Red Cross Society. The decision was taken and the committee comprises Venu Sharma, Sylvester D’Souza, Dinesh Rao and Dr G K Bhat. Earlier, Venu Sharma suggested to set up a corpus fund of Rs one crore towards the future projects of IRCS. He said that as per the new rules, firms have to spend 2 per cent of their profit towards CSR - corporate social responsibilities and IRCS can make good the opportunity as there are several big private firms and banks in the district who will oblige.
1,002 units blood given free : Assistant Drugs Controller and IRCS DK unit Secretary K V Nagaraj reading the annual report said that a total of 1,002 units of blood was given free of cost to Govt Lady Goschen hospital in the last year, out of the total 2,761 units collected from 87 blood donation camps.
As IRCS Vice Chairman and Blood Bank Chairman R A Fernandes informed the members that the blood bank is running under loss as majority of the blood collected is given free of cost to the government hospital patients, Member Dinesh Rao suggested the DC to take steps to collect nominal fee (blood testing fee) either from the patients or hospital. The DC in his reply assured to look into the issue.
R A Fernandes also told the members that the IRCS Blood Bank is the only blood bank among the 14 blood banks in the district, which does not ask for replacement of blood, while issuing blood to patients. The private hospital blood banks have been asking for replacements from the patients, besides charging them the full amount.
Additional DC and district IRCS Vice President Sree Kumar and IRCS district unit Chairman B Prabhakar Sriyan and management committee members were present.
Next Election on Nov 1, 2015 : As the term of the present committee comes to an end in the month of November, it was decided to conduct the election for the 10 posts of Managing Committee members of the district unit of IRCS on November 1. The members unanimously resolved to appoint IRCS DK unit former Secretary Suresh Kumar as the returning officer.
**About DK - IRCS - Indian Red Cross Society is an international service orgasnisation; the DC of the district is the President at the district level, while the State Governor is the President at the State level. The President is the head at the National level. The DK IRCS was started in 1997, but for the first time an elected body came into being only in Nov 2012, to be active for 3 years. Soon the elections here are due.
During the current period DK DC Adoor B Ibrahim IAS has been the President. Sri. B Prabhakar Shriyan was Chairman and Sri.Ronald Fernandes Vice Chairman. Sri K V Nagaraj Hon.Secretary and Sri Shashiraj Rao Kavoor Hon Treasurer.
It was a proud moment for DK IRCS unit when it was awarded the ‘Runner-up’ award for the year 2013-14 int eh best unit category. On May 8, 2015 HE Governor of Karnataka Vajibhai R Vala on the occasion of World Red Cross Day presented the trophy at Bengaluru, to the DK delegation led by the DC Ibrahim.
It is to be put on record, as on 31.03 2015 the total number of members was 1283, as against 1174 the previous year. During the year 2014-15 87 Blood donation camps were held, 2761 blood units were collected and 2730 blood units were issued out.
In the recent past ‘blood component separation unit’ was inaugurated at the re-arranged blood bank at located at Govt. Lady Goshen hospital in the city. This blood component separation unit is worth over a crore of rupees and was donated by BPCL as part of it;s CSR actions. KMC hospital also provide vital back-up services free of cost for DK IRCS.