On December 24, the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion held a ceremony to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Institute's founding (December 31, 1984 - December 31, 2024). At the ceremony, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Ha Thanh, Director of the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, said that the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion was established on the basis of merging two units: the Department of Hematology and Blood Transfusion and the Department of Blood Diseases C5; originally called the Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, under Bach Mai Hospital. The establishment of the Institute affirmed the inevitable need to develop the Hematology and Blood Transfusion specialty to meet the needs of emergency and treatment.
On March 8, 2004, the Prime Minister signed a decision to establish the Central Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, under the Ministry of Health.
Overcoming difficulties and shortages of human resources, finance and facilities, after 40 years of establishment and development, the Central Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion has achieved many important achievements, honored to receive the First, Second and Third Class Labor Medals; becoming a Labor Hero in the renovation period and always maintaining the professional quality of the leading Institute in the specialty of Hematology and Blood Transfusion nationwide.
One of the modern techniques and methods applied by the Institute in treatment is stem cell transplantation. The Institute has implemented the first autologous stem cell transplantations since 2006 and completely matched allogeneic stem cell transplantations since 2008. To date, the Institute has performed 663 transplants, making it one of the two units with the most and highest quality stem cell transplantations in Vietnam.
Many complex hematopoietic stem cell transplantation methods, from many different stem cell sources, are applied such as: umbilical cord blood stem cell transplantation (same bloodline and different bloodline), semi-compatible transplantation, semi-compatible transplantation combined with umbilical cord blood stem cells... Stem cell transplantation techniques are applied to treat more diseases and the age of transplantation is increasingly expanded. In particular, the treatment of post-transplant complications has achieved many remarkable advances, bringing the chance of survival to more and more patients.
To date, the Institute has 9 clinical departments with the number of inpatients always maintained from 1,100 to 1,300 patients per day.
With many laboratories considered to be the leading laboratories in the country in the field of hematology, paraclinical activities not only meet the needs of the Institute but also support the diagnosis and treatment monitoring of many other hospitals in Hanoi and the northern provinces/cities. In 2024, the Institute performed 10,030,974 tests, an increase of nearly 30 times compared to 2004.
In the field of blood transfusion, the Institute has built a synchronous and complete National Blood Center from propaganda, blood donation mobilization, blood reception organization, screening, preparation, storage, distribution of blood and blood products with large capacity and modern technology. If in 2004, the Institute only received more than 36,500 units of blood, 68% of which were blood donations for money, by 2024, the Institute had received 472,000 units of whole blood and 33,500 units of platelets (accounting for 30% of the total blood received nationwide), the voluntary blood donation rate reached over 96.2%. Since then, more than 850,000 units of blood products have been provided to 185 medical facilities in 33 provinces/cities.
