Last month we cross the 1000 mark for the number of blood units being transfused to patients suffering from thalassemia across the state of Karnataka. We must congratulate Rashtrotthana Blood Bank- Bangalore, Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health-Bangalore and K L E Society Hospital and Medical Research Centre Blood bank for ensuring continued supply of safe and voluntarily donated blood for each of our patients completely free of cost.
Sankalp India Foundation, Bangalore, Think Foundation, Mumbai and We Care Trust, Mumbai collaborated with Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital,Mumbai and had started a Bone Marrow Transplantation Project at Mumbai for Thalassemia patients coming from financially poor background. The project was started in April 2016 and Karan Veer Singh from Think Foundation was the project coordinator. The first child who was transplanted was about to get discharged and the second child had got admitted. At this time we had a shocking news.
After the end of a long busy day as I sat to look at some videos, I got a call from Dr Reshma. She informed me that a child who is taking treatment at our centre needed an urgent appendicectomy – removal of his appendix which had become infected and inflamed. It was a Saturday night. The patient had travelled from a place 200km away from Bangalore and reached a prominent Government Hospital in Bangalore for the urgent surgery. However, there was no surgeon available at the hospital.
When I walked up the stairs of Samraksha today I realised that a little girl was peeping down from the stairs. The look in her eyes told me that she was waiting for me. I shared the usual pleasantries with the family and walked across a hall full of children and parents straight to the doctor's room. We had a meeting scheduled for the day and soon I found myself with 2 of my friends in a room discussing the future roadmaps.
A historic photograph which captures the first 10 families which underwent bone marrow transplantation at our centre come together. All the 10 children are cured and are doing well.
