It was more than a year back when we a family who had two little girls suffering from thalassemia from Afghanistan approached Cure2Children Foundation for help with HLA typing. The family was overjoyed to find that both the girls had a match. The father of the girls is a driver and could not have afforded transplantation.
The pathology department of JJM Medical College Davangere with it's associated blood bank at Bapuji Hospital organized a one day workshop on “Voluntary Blood Donation and Appropriate use of Blood Components” to promote voluntary blood donation and sensitize the medical fraternity about the need for rationale utilization of available blood resources.
Normally, when you tell a family which has a child who suffers from thalassemia, that they have a match, at least for one moment you expect to see a smile. This was not the case when we broke the news to five-year-old Nirmitha's family. She was detected with thalassemia within the first year of her birth and ever since she was dependent on monthly blood transfusions.
Recently, we had a situation where a pregnant woman who was close to delivery was detected with Bombay blood group. She was shifted to Bangalore because the local doctors were uncomfortable handling the situation. The lady had haemoglobin on 12 gm/dl and it was then that it was discovered that the patient had extremely low platelets as well.
