The unethical practice of selling blood plasma to a private health service provider by the Central Blood Bank here is taking its toll on the thalassemia patients. After it was revealed that the blood banks have sold plasma collected from the blood donated by the volunteers, no one is coming forward to donate blood this summer.
“As such very few volunteers turn up to donate blood during summer. But this time, those few are also reluctant to donate blood after the recent immoral act of blood banks selling blood plasma,” says Ratan Sinha, a voluntary blood donor of the city who also organises blood donation camps.
The blood banks have sold blood plasma to the Reliance life Science at a throwaway price of Rs 200 per unit and the private health provider, in its turn, was selling it to the needy at an exorbitant cost of Rs 1,400 per unit. To this utter inhuman act, the State Government has reacted simply by saying that the blood plasmas were rotting at the blood banks.
But in reality, the State is having acute shortage of blood and blood plasma and there was no question of plasma units rotting at the blood banks, Sinha said, adding that there are nearly 400 thalassemia patients in and around Cuttack city and the blood bank here requires around 20 units of blood everyday as these thalassemia patients need one unit of fresh blood in every 45 days to survive.
looking at this unfortunate situation, Sinha in his capacity as secretary of the SN Mohanty Memorial Helpline has taken up an innovative method of organising mobile blood donation camps. He has converted his SUV into a makeshift blood donation camp and is visiting offices, banks, business houses to receive blood from the donors.
“Instead of waiting for the volunteers to come forward to blood donation camps, I am taking the camp to them,” Sinha said on Tuesday after holding two such camps in Bhubaneswar on the day. In the first camp held in the office of the Tribal Development Cooperative Corporation (TDCC), he collected 13 units of blood, and in the second camp held at the office of the SN Mohanty Group of Companies, 17 units of blood were collected.
Similarly, in the two mobile camps held in Cuttack on Sunday and Monday, Sinha collected 20 units of blood. “I have decided to hold the mobile blood donation camps in and around Cuttack city for another fortnight to collect around 200 units of blood, which will be handed over to the Red Cross Blood Bank to be exclusively used for the thalassemia patients,” Sinha, who himself has already donated blood for 99 times, said.