Due to the dengue outbreak this year, city hospitals are struggling to arrange platelets for their patients. The India Red Cross Society (IRCS) is working continuously to arrange the platelets units for the required blood groups. According to the IRCS official, demand for blood platelets has increased from 150 units to 200 units per hospital. With the dengue outbreak at peak here in the National Capital, hospitals such as GTB, Kalawati Saran and NDMC’s Charak Palika have been knocking the doors of IRCS to save the lives of their patients, said sources.
looking at the need of the hour, IRCS is organising blood donation camps in the entire city to achieve maximum number of blood donations.
IRCS official told The Pioneer, that over 150 units to 200 units of platelets are being used in every hospital. The requirement of blood platelet may also increase in the coming days, said the official.
“We are making every possible effort to arrange required blood platelets. Hospitals such as GTB, Kalawati Saran and NDMC’s Charak Palika have approached us,” said the IRCS official.
Experts said platelet transfusion is very expensive. It costs around 15 thousand to lakhs, depending on the unit requirement of the patients.
Phoolwati, 29, the mother of a six-year-old girl who is admitted in the lok Nayak Hospital, is struggling hard to get the matched platelets unit for her daughter.
Phoolwati, who works as a domestic help, said, “Doctor has said they do not have the matched platelets unit required for my daughter and that it will get arranged in a day or a two.”
The city’s lok Nayak Hospital, the only Government hospital which supplies blood transfusion to other hospitals, is also having acute crisis of blood bank and platelet units. To overcome the problem of platelets requirement as the dengue patients are increasing each day, the hospital is conducting maximum blood donations these days.”