Bombay Group Flown To Istanbul

Bengaluru: A city-based voluntary blood donation organisation has come to the rescue of a critically ill cancer patient in Istanbul, Turkey, and helped his chances of survival by sending three units of his extremely rare blood group – Bombay blood type —from local donors.

Sankalp India Foundation — a voluntary blood donation organisation, comprising primarily of techies received an emergency call from the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Medical Institute of Istanbul on February 20 for Bombay blood group for a 70-year-old patient suffering from lung cancer. The surgeons at the institute realised that the patient, waiting to undergo chemotherapy had very low blood count, of 5.5mg/dl as against minimum 12.5mg/dl and that he needed immediate blood transfusion to undergo chemotherapy.

Much to their chagrin, the doctors found that the patient’s blood type — Bombay blood group — was not available in Turkey, and in Europe. Their search for the rare blood of Bombay phenotype — said to be found in one among 20,000 people — on the Net threw up Sankalp India Foundation’s link www.bombaybloodgroup.org and they hit the key.

“They approached us and we organised three units of blood from three donors in Bengaluru. The patient’s son flew into the city on February 23, and we packaged the blood, which was drawn from three donors and stored at the Rashtrotthana Blood Bank in a cool box and sent it with him the next day. The patient’s family has got back to us stating that the patient’s blood count has gone up to 11 mg/dl after the blood transfusion,” said Prabha Gowda, volunteer, Sankalp.

Though the Foundation has regularly provided blood for patients and held blood donation camps across the country since its inception in 2003, this was the first request for blood from overseas.

Call 09880132850 for any blood related emergencies.