Summer brings with it a strange pleasure and fun to all of us. School children look forward to summer vacations with excitement to pursue all their non curriculum activities. People plan vacations and excursions in summer, visits to hill stations are quite common. Summers are a time where the the trekkers and mountaineers go into the woods to answer that voice from within to scale the mountains. Ice cream lovers relish all their flavors in summer. Summer months in India are a wonderful experience. Summers does bring in problems too, summers are hot. Summers are tiring. Summers are demanding. Summers drain our energies more than ever. But every coin has 2 sides and it depends on what perspective one looks at. Everyone does enjoy summer in one way or the other.
However, there are one set of people who hate summers. These people wish summers never came. These people struggle without help in summers. Guessing who they are? They are the doctors and technicians in a Blood Bank. Why??? Because summers bring with it an acute shortage of blood in the country. Summer months are the worst. People wander aimlessly in search of blood during summers. Most blood banks are empty. There is no blood anywhere. Patients and relatives cringe. This sadly, is a bad situation for a country as vibrant and dynamic as India.
Here is an article on from a news website. This was in 2007:
While Thursday is World Blood Donors day, the tragedy is that in India we are still struggling with a huge shortage of blood and donors, especially when most required.For instance, four-year-old Krishnapriya suffers from Thalassemia, a medical condition that requires her to get regular transfusion of blood. She needs one unit of O+ve blood every 25 days, and arranging that each time is a nightmare for her parents as there is a chronic shortage of blood.When an NDTV team accompanied the parents to the government-run Niloufer Children's hospital, the attendant at theblood bank asked them to wait, after two hours, the duty doctor informed them that blood was not available.The next stop was a private blood bank. The staff over there demanded Rs 800 for a unit of blood and even that would be given only if a donor was provided to replenish the blood. "Unless you bring a donor of the same blood group, we can't give you blood," said Staff, Blood Bank.Finally, the family visited a corporate hospital, where Jayashree, Krishnapriya's mother, managed to get one unit of blood for Rs 1150.
"Government hospitals are never of any help. Private hospitals ask up to Rs 2000. Middle class people like us can't afford that much money. And even if we buy from private blood banks, we fear the blood won't be safe," said Jayashree, Krishnapriya's Mother.According to estimates, Andhra Pradesh requires at least nine lakh units of blood a year.But blood banks get less than half the requirement, and the number of donors reduces further during the summer."We should include information about blood donation as a part of the curriculum in colleges and even at the level of schools. If the government does that, at least a section of people will be motivated," said Dr Raghava Reddy, Medical Officer, Red Cross.Last summer in Hyderabad, apparently the price of a unit of B-ve blood touched up to Rs 4000.Doctors say that if one regularly donates blood from the age of 18, then that could help out at least 120 people.Clearly everyone needs to play their part to ensure that those in need of blood are taken care of.
Despite having 41licensed blood banks and eight new regional blood transfusion centres, Delhi has still not found a solution to the perennial blood and blood components shortage it faces each summer.
Riddled with loopholes and lack of co-ordination among its blood banks, the Capital also has to tackle an illegal professional donors' market that flourishes due to the shortage, putting at risk thalassemia patients, emergency cases needing transfusion and those scheduled for surgery.
"Delhi requires 40,000 units of blood each month. With a sharp fall in blood donation camps and with schools and colleges closing for vacations during summers, the blood banks get reduced quantity of blood and its components. And it is this shortage that gives rise to various illegal activities, including sale of blood. Worse, in case of rare blood groups, the price of blood (put under processing charges) in private blood banks can go up to even Rs. 1,800 per unit as against the Government-prescribed rates of Rs. 500 per unit,'' said a health official talking about the shortage and associated problems that the city faces each summer.
Pointing to the fact that the blood banking system in Delhi has its own set of problems, the Chairman of the Nursing Homes and Medical Establishments Forum, Dr. Prem Aggarwal, noted that after the Supreme Court banned professional donations, the blood banks are dependent on voluntary blood donations and replacements for their stocks upkeep. "The fact that almost all blood banks insist on replacement of donors gives birth to professional donors. This is where the middlemen come in and provide donors for Rs. 1,500 onwards. Also, the suggestion of the State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC) for all blood banks in Delhi to go online did not work and only three of the 41 banks went online with their blood stock status,'' said Dr. Aggarwal.
"The only way to improve the situation is to push up the voluntary donation rate in Delhi and provide manpower, technical support and increased financial aid to various Government collection centres, besides making blood collection a target-oriented programme.''
And with the Government not allowing private blood banks to organise blood donation camps, the situation goes from bad to worse, especially during summers. "The population that we rely on for donating blood - students in schools and colleges - go on leave during summer and there is no routine blood donation schemes that ensure that summer months are covered.
The trend is not limited to Hyderabad or Delhi alone. Almost every state and every city in India faces this problem. The estimate of the problem in rural India is unknown. But it is much much poor compared to the metros and bug cities, no doubt about that.
Now the question is : What do we do for this? How do we fight this shortage??
The answer is simple. Voluntary Blood Donation. The National Aids Control Organisation makes it very clear in all it's policies that Voluntary Blood Donation must be the norm. Professinonal donors have to be smothered. The need of the hour is plenty of voluntary blood donation drives in summer. All of us together can solve a problem plaguing us from time unknown.Spread this message around, create an awareness. Make people realise that human blood cannot be manufactured. Another human being has to donate it. Furthermore, there are plaenty of benefits in donating blood regularly. Grab this chance to be a hero. Stand up and be counted. Organise a voluntary blood donation drive in your college, your company, your appartment.
How can we help you?: Once you have made up your mind that you can orrganise a blood donation drive, get in touch with sankalp. Just mail the details to sankalp.admin@gmail.com. Within a day, somebody will contact you. Start planning now. Definitely by summer you can muster enough strength to organise a blood donation drive. The first step is tough. That is to make up your mind. After that Sankalp will guide you. We promise to organise a drive with utmost care towards donor safety. Standards will be on par with what you expect in any professional blood donation drive. This is our challenge.Let's fight the summer shortage of blood in 2009.