Before H1N1 took the limelight by spreading unknown terror in the minds of people, already there was a silent killer on the prowl. Dengue, the much prevalent disease which unfortunately got very less attention, had been making itself more pronounced in the medical field in the past two months. There was a time in these two months when almost all the requests were for platelets units or Single Donor Platelets (SDP) to help the patient suffering from extremely low platelet count due to this disease.
All the donors who had registered with us, along with a few more willing Aphaeresis donors who realized the acute shortage of platelets with a few press releases were all giving a fair number of chances to donate and be life saviors.
In the midst of all this, there was clearly one sector of people who worked day in and day out continuously along with the ever running Aphaeresis machines to provide the required units of blood. They are the people who work in the blood banks who ensure complete safety to the donors also conduct all the necessary tests on the blood collected to ensure that the patient receives safe blood. More than just electricity keeps these people going, and they never complained in these times of crisis. Be it blood requests and Aphaeresis requests in odd hours of the night, we found that M. S. Ramaiah Blood Bank was working with full efficiency round the clock. With more than 55 blood banks in the city who claim to provide relief to any person looking for blood, it was only at Ramaiah blood bank that the promise was kept to best possible extent. It was here that the time factor was never a restraint, where it was only the matter of a life of a human the motivating factor to keep it going.
The evening of 29th August was dedicated to the blood bank staff by the volunteers of Sankalp India Foundation where we spent time with these people interactively. Small tokens of appreciation were given and the blood bank staff (along with us) was taken in for a surprise when the Medical Director of M. S. Ramaiah Memorial Hospital came to our informal gathering. Extending his congratulatory notes to the staff, he also gave them a word of caution to highlight the importance of the work they do and also motivate them to do better with ‘zero error’ as he puts it.
It was this informal meeting which made us realize that we have to work together to overall uplift the blood banking system to reach its optimal level. As a departing note, we took immense amount of unsaid trust and co-ordination for the times ahead of us. Thank you blood bank members!!
It showed each of us a reason to fight against the blood shortage in a better way, with better understanding and better motivation. It showed each of our contribution will make a significant contribution to the way our blood banking system will shape out to be in the coming years. Hoping for similar contribution from every individual who wishes to “Act” instead of just sit and “Complain”.