Sankalp Program for Thalassemia Management is aimed at ensuring that adequate and appropriate care is provided to each child taking coming to our centres. The overall aim is to resume normalcy in their lives. A key component in this pursuit is reducing the time it takes to provide appropriate medical intervention. For individuals who need to come back for follow-up every few weeks and for patients who travel long distances to seek care, every hour saved matters a lot. We realised, while we have made immense progress in reducing time of stay at the clinic, we realised that getting the initial blood counts was taking 1-2 hours or even more because the samples needed to be accumulated and sent nearby for the counts.
It was in this context that Mrs Jasmine Majethia, a member of the advisory board of Sankalp India Foundation, approached Mrs. Mala Vazirani, Director at Transasia Bio-Medicals Ltd. for help. We requested her to contribute a cell counter to our thalassemia day care centre at Project Samraksha, Rashtrotthana Parishat, Bangalore. Once she heard of the need and how the equipment is likely to help our children, she immediately agreed to help.
On 23rd December 2016 the cell counter was installed at the clinic. It has now been put to full use at our Thalassemia Centre and it has given immense benefit to patients. On the very next Sunday a lot of children who are receiving hydroxyurea - a medicine which needs weekly follow-up with blood counts - were back home more than 90 minutes earlier than usual. With the equipment providing such seamless care, we wonder how we were doing without it so long.
"I have been working for thalassemia since 1987 and have been trying to provide consolidated care for Thalassemics. With Sankalp and this young group of dedicated volunteers I am able to fulfil by dreams of providing comprehensive care to Thalassemic Children. This is one of the steps in that direction. Thank you everybody for your support." - Mrs. Jasmine Majethia.
Without the machine everyday 15-20 patients wait to get CBC done and collect report. This activity is happening in minutes all because of the support of some concerned individuals. This translates to 6000 hours of the patients’ time and those of the family saved (cumulative) each year. We are grateful to Transasia for the support.