Mumbai stares at blood shortage

We have close to 6,000 blood units in Mumbai. The daily blood requirement for the city is between 500-700 units ARUN THORAT, Assistant Director. SBTC

MUMBAI: With many Mumbaiites away on summer vacations, the city has started seeing a drop in stock at blood banks. According to the State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC), Mumbai has enough supply for the next seven to eight days.

“During summers, we face an acute shortage of blood as people go on vacation. At present, we have close to 6,000 blood units in Mumbai. The daily blood unit requirement for the city is between 500-700,” said Dr Arun Thorat, assistant director, SBTC.

Typically on any given day, blood banks in Mumbai have a stock of 10,500 to 14,700 units of blood that can last 21 days.

Thorat said that with Covid-19 restrictions being lifted, they are hoping that the blood shortage scenario won’t be acute but they aren’t taking any chance.

“I will be sending a letter to all social, religious and political organisations requesting them to organise blood donation camps. We need to take special efforts for the next two months,” he said.

Non-government organisations (NGOS) have started organising blood donation camps. During the pandemic, their biggest challenge was corporates working from home, with situation stabilising, the NGOS are now reaching out to corporates to organise blood donation camps.

Vinay Shetty of NGO Think Foundation said, “There is a shortage but fortunately, on May 1, we saw some blood donation camps because of which we are in a little better position. We are, however, worried about the possible acute shortage by the end of the month. We are trying to activate corporate blood donation camps. We have scheduled two corporate blood donation camps on May 12 and May 27.”

In the blood donation camp held on May 1, 935 units of blood was collected.

He said that the city needs 25,000 donors to donate blood every month. “Thalassemia children are the worst affected due to acute shortage of blood as they need the blood transfusion almost after every 21 days,” said Shetty.

According to SBTC, the major contributor to the city’s requirement for blood comes from blood donation camps. “We are getting calls because of the shortage of blood. However, I think we are in a much better position than the last two years where voluntary blood donors were also hesitating to come and donate and we were not able to organise blood donation camps with corporates as they were working from home,” said Vikas Vira, NGO Tarun Mitra Mandal.

To meet the demand and supply of blood in the city, Vira said they have lined up blood camps every weekend.