After 5 days, couple gets blood donor to save unborn child
of contracting Covid-19 is keeping people from donating blood, leading to a shortage in blood banks, particularly of negative blood groups. The family of an unborn child, who has been diagnosed with a rare blood disorder and urgently needs blood transfusion, had to wait for five days until they found a donor on Monday.
Suwarna Pawar, who is seven months pregnant, was admitted to Wadia Maternity Hospital in Parel last week. The foetus has been diagnosed with a rare blood disorder and requires intrauterine blood transfusion (a procedure by which blood transfusion is done through the umbilical cord). Pawar has A- (negative) blood, but the foetus needs Oblood. Wadia Maternity Hospital was unable to arrange for Oblood despite contacting their registered O- blood donors.
“We have over 100 registered O- blood donors, but none of them are agreeing to come to the hospital because of the fear of contracting Covid-19. We are helpless,” said a doctor from the hospital.
Following the intervention of this reporter, 39-year-old Odonor Prashant Sawant from Tilak Nagar agreed to donate blood. “It was my duty to save the life of the child who hasn’t even seen the light of the day. Just like the Covid-19 pandemic, we are also facing another health crisis — shortage of blood. People need to come forward to donate blood,” said Sawant, who works in an IT company.
The hospital is expected to perform the intrauterine transfusion today. According to the State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC), there is only one unit of O- blood available in the city at Rajawadi Hospital and there are 44 unit of O- blood components at different blood banks. However, these are not suitable for intrauterine transfusion. “For the process, we need blood which can’t be more than five days old. All the blood components that are available, are quite old,” said a medical officer from Wadia Maternity Hospital, where two major surgeries had to be stalled due to unavailability of O- and Ablood.