Notwithstanding that blood collection/donation in Odisha is being adopted by almost all political parties as a political campaign tool to shore up vote base, Odisha, however, still remains as a blood-deficit State by having a shortfall of around 13 per cent vis-a-vis the actual requirement norm as notified by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
As per latest data available with State Health Directorate, when the State saw a collection of over 4.01 lakh units of blood in 2017, the actual requirement in the same year has been over 4.54 lakh units.
Odisha, thus, has recorded a deficit to the tune of as high as 13 per cent. And the prime reason behind such high deficit is Odisha has mere 1.8 blood banks per 10lakh people vis-a-vis around 9 per 10lakh in a North-Eastern State like Mizoram and around 5 per 10 lakh in Kerala.
The interesting inference that has come to fore is when Kerala has only 41 blood banks administered by the Kerala Government, Odisha has 63 Government -run blood banks. Incidentally, a similar trend has also been observed that all other States/UTs that have atleast around five blood banks per 10 lakh population have more private blood banks than Government owned. And all such States, coincidentally, have surplus blood units vis-a-vis the WHO requirement norm of their respective States.
A look at district-wise blood banks in proportion to per 10lakh population reveals more distressing figures as they have the proportion below that of the State average. When districts like Ganjam, Kendrapada, Puri and Baleswar have not even 1 blood bank per 10lakh, districts like Cuttack, State headquarters Khurda, Kalahandi etc have only around 1 blood bank per 10 lakh. Northern Odisha districts like Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar that account for higher maternal mortality rate owing to high bleeding and unavailability of blood for transfusion have only around 1.5 blood banks per 10lakh.
Balangir, significantly, has around 2.4 blood banks per 10 lakh, which is higher than the State average. In western Odisha, districts like Sundergarh and Bargarh have blood bank proportion below that of State average. Overall, nearly 90 per cent districts in Odisha have blood banks-population proportion below the State average.
“Odisha sees annually around 3,000 to 5,000 deaths due to unavailability of appropriate blood group and proper blood quantity. last year around 30 per cent complicated pregnancies were treated with blood transfusion, which implies how lack of blood could trigger MMR in State,” observed a senior official in the Health Directorate.
Significantly, data shows almost half of districts in State in most of times don’t have ‘O’ blood-group, which is in maximum demand.
However, as blood donation camps are aggressively organised by almost all political parties along with NGOs and public sector organisations, the effect has been quite salutary on blood collection in State as the total collection has taken a quantum leap of over 44 per cent since 2013-14. The total blood units collected in 2013-14 in Odisha were a mere 2.8lakh units against the requirement of 4.1lakh units, which shows the shortfall in 2013-14 was a humungous 46 per cent. But the deficit in 2017-18 reduced to mere 13 per cent.