Nagpur: For Gajanan Jagnade, arranging blood for his two sons — Aditya (11) and Parth (4) had never been so difficult. “Me, my relatives, friends, and their friend — all have repeatedly donated blood in last eight months. Now, we are literally begging people we know to become replacement donors for us,” said Jagnade. Both his sons are thalassemia major patients and together they require 4 bags of blood per month.
“We get blood for free, but arranging donor against the blood has become near impossible these days,” said Jagnade mentioning that the blood bank had never insisted so much for the donor against the blood earlier. He understands the crisis situation is due to low blood donation activity during Covid-19.
“We never felt so helpless,” said Dr Harish Warbhe, director of Lifeline Blood Bank. “We used to have 500 to 700 bags of blood in stock. Today, I have less than 50 bags left. That is why, we are left with no option but to insist for donor against blood,” he said. Most of the times, the thalassemia patients arrange donors. Sometime, blood banks arrange replacement donors on their own. Eventually, every needy patient gets blood but, the process has become hectic due to never-before shortage.
There used to be more than 50 blood donation camps every month during November, December and January. More than 100 bags of blood used to get collected from each camp. Now, number of camps has gone down to 6 or 7 and collection per camp has gone down to 20-25 bags only. As colleges are still closed, blood donation from young students is not happening. Even the blood banks in two GMCs in Nagpur are also facing acute crisis.
Dr Hedgewar blood bank has its own list of 1 lakh-odd donors and they are arranging blood for needy by exploring this list. “We are calling our donors daily and somehow meeting day’s requirement. We have more than 70 patients of thalassemia registered with us. Till now, we have been providing blood to them for transfusion. But, the crisis is serious,” said Ashok Patki, secretary of this blood bank.
Dr Vinky Rughwani, Director of thalassemia and Sickle Cell Centre, said that the situation was never so critical. “Many thalassemia patients require up to 4 bags of blood per month. Arranging so many donors is not possible for any individual. People should come forward and donate blood,” he said.