Kin rue patients not getting blood despite availability

The State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC) issued a notice to all the city’s blood banks, ordering them to submit the complete report of blood collection in the last six days. The official said that they have also asked them to update the total collection of blood on their portal named as ‘e-raktkosh’ and should also submit a report on daily basis to the SBTC by morning 10 am.

The main reason for issuing the notice is because the city-based blood bank refused to give required blood groups to the patient’s relatives despite having enough stock in their blood bank.

“As the state body denied a crisis situation, on the one hand, it asked all blood banks to provide information on how many blood units were collected between November 9-16,” said Dr Arun Thorat, Assistant Director of SBTC.

When Free Press Journal called the JJ Mahanagar blood bank to ask whether they have A+ and B+ blood group in the stock, they hung up the call by saying they do not have any stock of blood.

“Though the city is facing a shortage of blood still blood banks are refusing to give required blood groups even though they have enough stock in the blood banks,” said a relative.

He further stated that they have issued a memo to the staffers who refused to give blood to the relatives despite having the stock.

“We have issued a notice to all the blood banks and they have to submit a complete report on blood which is been collected on a daily basis. They also have to update the report on their portal site named as e-raktkosh,” Dr Thorat added.

He further added that if

any blood banks failed to do upload and submit the detail a stern action would be taken against them. “The blood banks also have to submit a complete report of blood collection from November 9 to November 16 immediately,” Thorat said.

Interestingly, the State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC) on November 13 came out with a statement saying that they did not receive any complaints related

to non-availability of blood all this while. “It is possible that there may be a shortage of a specific group in a particular bank,” the statement said, adding that a review of the stock situation last week showed that there were about 2,500-3,000 units in all the city’s 59 banks put together. The statement said during October 2016 the total blood units collected were 21,872 as compared to 22,850 units this year.