Blood donation takes a beating in festive season …………Rajiv Sharma I TNN
Mumbai: The festival season has left blood banks high and dry. With most people busy with festivities, few donors have come forward to donate blood. Consequently, the citys blood banks are facing an acute shortage of blood.
According to Vinay Shetty from Think Foundation, a NGO, The main reason for the shortage is that people were on leave for Diwali and regular blood donation programmes have not been taking place.
Moreover, the blood donation drive at Dadar station finally closed down on October 31. While moves are afoot to have short duration drives at other stations such as Churchgate, Bandra, Andheri and Borivli, nothing concrete has been worked out.
Dr Yogini Patel, in-charge of the blood bank at BSES Hospital in Andheri, said, The problem has become specially acute in the last two days. We would like to appeal to the corporate sector and even regular donors that they should come forward in this time of crisis and donate blood.
Shetty said there also is a bigger problem of shortage of platelets that are needed for the treatment of patients suffering from dengue, leptospirosis and malaria.
Besides, the ambitious programme to the start a Metropolitan Blood Bank in the JJ Hospital campus has been delayed for more than three years. As a result, not only is there a shortage of blood in the hospital, but there are no components like platelets and plasma available for patients, a senior doctor said. This is because there is no component separation facilities at the JJ Hospital blood bank and the patients relatives are forced to run to different hospitals to get blood units and platelets.