Hemoglobin test is a very important factor to determine whether the donors, whether male or female are fit to donate blood. Drugs & Cosmetic Act permit blood banks to collect blood only when the donor has a minimum hemoglobin level of 12.5 gm/dl. That means no blood bank should take blood from the donors who has hemoglobin less than 12.5 gm/dl. And, donor should undergo hemoglobin test every time he/she donates blood.
Recently, we had a situation where a pregnant woman who was close to delivery was detected with Bombay blood group. She was shifted to Bangalore because the local doctors were uncomfortable handling the situation. The lady had haemoglobin on 12 gm/dl and it was then that it was discovered that the patient had extremely low platelets as well. The doctors decided to go for caesarean operation and told the family that the situation of the lady was extremely rare and critical.
On a busy day in a blood donation drive I was taking care of the pre-donation area. The room available for the camp was not very large so the registration and waiting area were organised in the corridor outside. A few donors patiently waited for their turn to donate while curious people walking across looked around.
The following article relating to remand for replacement blood units has been taken from the Facebook post of one of our volunteer.
If the blood banks can't accept blood from reputed, licensed blood banks in the city then why should the Government ask for increasing voluntary blood donation at all?
Last month total of 13 Bombay blood group requests for 16 units. 2 units were found available off the shelf while 7 donations happened. Other units managed by systematic planning and use of alternatives to blood transfusion therapy.
Sankalp helpline gets a minimum of 3 to 4 Bombay blood group requests every month from all parts of the country. With such flowing requests and very few eligible donors available it has become very much a necessity to request donors to donate every three months and motivate more Bombay blood group donors who are not aware about the scarcity and need of this unit.
Sankalp's emergency team works round the clock to help those who fail to find blood off the shelf. A major responsibility of the team is to coordinate the availability of Bombay blood group. The work of the team is highly eventful. Here we share some major events from the last month relating to Bombay blood group.
Usually whenever Sankalp receives blood requests on the helpline, the request gets fulfilled within a week unless operation is scheduled for a later date. But in this one request, the heart surgery of a 9 year old girl was postponed 3 times in 6 months due to various reasons.
Handling blood requests at late hours in the night is not new for the Emergency Wing at Sankalp. 19th April 2013 was one such day. We received A- SDP(Single Donor Platelet) request.
The patient was suffering from dengue. When a person is affected by dengue, the platelets count usually decreases from lakhs to thousands. In this case, the count at that hour (at 11:30 PM) was less than 10,000 in the patient. With such a low count, the patient side was informed to arrange two to three A- SDP units.
