The Ups and Downs at the Thal Day Care

Though the stories of achievement and growth have their exceptional charm - sometimes the story of mere survival itself looks interesting enough to be shared. Here we share with you the roller coaster ride we had managing the Day Care Centre for thalassemia.

While the marriage invitation of our volunteer who was coordinating the day care came by the side, a major problem came up along with it. Akshata was managing the Day Care Centre with elegance and quality. She shared a very good equation with the patients and their parents, and she was very familiar with the nitty gritties of the system. When the children at the day care were informed that Akshata is not going to be there for sometime because she is getting married, their question of how soon will she be back was something we did not have the courage to tell the expecting little kids that she will be travelling to the land 7 seas away for a while. So, as it came to pass, the organisation started searching for a replacement while the volunteers started taking days off their work to ensure that the centre keeps running.

The journey to find the next person was a long nightmare. Painstakingly we chose candidates. With great care we tried to train and quip them. We gave them the customary offer letters for a permanent job posting at the day care centre and not once but twice over the candidates we selected left and all efforts went in vain. Managing the thalassemia day care centre is a very unique kind of a job opportunity. It is very difficult to find people who are committed enough to ensuring that the patients are given adequate blood, care and attention - no matter what! When the candidates chosen with a lot of care but failed to deliver, it was a heartbreaking moment for each one involved. 

While the volunteers struggled to keep the show running by taking off in turns, the situation became really difficult to manage. If this was not all, the season of holidays came to pass - and we must admit - it brought in no joy for us :( . Towards the end of December the blood banks ran out of blood and we had to struggle to make available each unit of blood for the little children. Compounding the problem was the difficulty in communication on days when the volunteer who was managing the day-care was not too fluent with Kannada. The families began to feel that without Akshata, the hope for proper support was fading. Little did they know that with the shelves in blood bank getting empty - getting each unit of blood in itself was a herculean challenge. We tried everything we could - emergency donation drives at the hospital, persuading some companies to organise camps at short notice, organise for emergency blood donations etc. We would like to exceptionally thank the blood bank officers, management and staff of Rashtrotthana  Blood Bank and NIMHANS blood bank for doing the best they could to help us ensure that the children continue to get blood on time.

Finally in was the middle on January when in a regular Saturday meeting we hit the very bottom. For 2 months on a daily basis we were putting in a volunteer each day either at the day care or to help whoever was there. The volunteers were under tremendous pressure. After long deliberation in that meeting, we set out afresh to find someone to manage the day-care. Call, interviews and screening - a week later we were welcoming Chaitra to the thalassemia day care. Chaitra brought with her commitment and enthusiasm and quickly ramped up with the working of the day care.

In the mean time the Rakta Kranti team of the organisation was pushed to the limits to ensure camps come through. With a lot of blood sweat and tears put in, they finally managed to get a regular flow of drives.

While things started returning to normalcy at Sankalp's end, another problem was ticking in the background. At IGICH, the blood bank staff faced extreme difficulty in handling the blood requests coming from the day care. In the last one year, the number of children attending the day care centre has trebled and this has resulted due to the commitment and quality maintained at the day care hence patients from various centres were being referred to IGICH. However, even with the higher demand of blood there was no change in the manpower at the blood bank. While the hospital acknowledged this problem and initiated steps to add more technicians - as a stop-gap arrangement in the best interest of the care and treatment to be given to the children with thalassemia, Sankalp has appointed a technician to assist at the blood bank for a period of 3 months.

Looking back at the 3 months gone by, we must admit that it this is a no growth but simply a survival story. While it was jam packed with action and challenges  all that we wanted to ensure - and we are glad we did - is to ensure that the children coming to the daycare do not have to suffer because of blood. 

Looks like the storm has settled and the sea is calm. We are already tightening the sails and are preparing to take off with better care and better management for each of our little ones at the thalassemia day care.