By Dr. Lawrence Faulkner. Director Sankalp-People Tree Hospitals Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Bangalore, India and Medical Coordinator Cure2Children Foundation Florence, Italy.
The short answer is no. Why than many families with a child with thalassemia collect and store cord blood?
Fifteen-year-old Pavan Kumar Singh is a known thalassemic child. When he was diagnosed at the age of 3 months, his family did not have an idea what thalassemia was. He was taken to every possible hospital in Bangalore to find out if there was a cure for his condition. Every doctor they met told them that it was a chronic condition and he had to be on treatment and blood transfusion for his well being and survival. His family lost hope and they decided to end their lives along with the kid.
The Statewide Helpline for Blood has a new person taking care of it. Jyothi Crasta joined Sankalp on 24th June 2013 to manage the 'response centre'. Jyothi has done her Master Of Arts in Sociology at Christ University, Bangalore.
We write to you to update you upon the current status of the plan that Sankalp India Foundation is working upon to try and provide help to the people suffering from the massive disaster that has struck Uttarakhand.
23rd February 2013: Sankalp India Foundation, organised for 3 units of Bombay phenotype for a critical patient receiving treatment at Istanbul University, Turkey.
On 20th February 2013, Sankalp India Foundation received a blood request from the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Istanbul University, Turkey. The hospital identified the patient's blood group as Bombay blood group and for the past 7 days they had been looking for blood donors across Turkey without any success.
