We asked one of the BDO Volunteers to tell us something about today's blood requests. She stared back at us, and then at her mobile phone, and then uttered the words -"Chal Rahe Hain!" This is what grossly summarizes the day – 10th December 2008 for our emergency wing.
Having seen good blood stocks in the blood banks for past few months we were not used to getting more than 4-5 blood requests per day. But today was a very different case. We had 12 blood requests through the day and still the night is just getting started. We got blood requests from diverse geographies – New Delhi, Chickballapur to Bangalore. We for requests from various age groups ranging from a child requiring 100 ml to an old lady battling cancer with large volumes of blood required. There were requests from Kidwai, Vani Vilas, M S Ramaiah, Command Hospital, Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi and more and from Delhi we were talking to the very famous Safdarjung Hospital.
Blood Search is something that goes deep into the brains of our volunteers and settles somewhere deep down inside where it stays for life. In Delhi we had this request where the patient was not being admitted by Safdurjung even though the doctors said that the chances of his survival were a mere 30%. They wanted blood to be arranged first. And not blood- but platelets! One of our volunteers who had moved to Delhi a few months back swung into action. By tomorrow the request will be attended to and hope will have a fair chance.
Amazing part was the request for B+ves and O+ves.There was a father who was looking for 100ml blood of O+ve for his child. Amazingly the doctors who had advised this had no clue of the fact that blood banks do not usually collect blood in volumes less than 350 ml. Eventually the patient was given a whole unit.
One aphresis was done today after 4 four people were rejected and found unfit to donate platelets. The emergency team made the best use of these donors who had come all the way to the blood bank by arranging for them to donate for some other patients. This apheresis request took about 7 hours to get resolved and this can help you gauge the pressure on the emergency team volunteers.
Every single volunteer from the Emergency team got a chance to resolve one blood request by themselves today.
And thus, the emergency team which was in slumbers for past few months is in full action mode just in one day. Demand is being matched with supply and the war against shortage looks bent on our side as of now.