NEW DELHI, January 15: In another shocking case, a patient in critical condition undergoing treatment at Safdarjung hospital died yesterday after his relatives failed to arrange for blood in time.Tek Chand was wheeled into the hospital's casualty ward with a profusely bleeding ulcer and was advised an immediate blood transfusion to compensate for the blood loss. That was to be followed by surgery. The blood bank officials at the hospital, however, turned the relatives away saying they did not have blood of the requisite group (AB-positive).
By the time the harried relatives rushed to the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) blood bank at the Parliament Street to arrange for blood, five hours had already been lost. Even a blood transfusion, then, could not save his life.
Barely two days ago, on January 12, the relatives of an Australian national undergoing treatment at a private nursing home, similarly, had a harrowing experience arranging for blood for her treatment. Twenty six-year-old Tara Diane was
rushed to the Golf Link's posh East West Nursing Home with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.
"By the time she made it to the nursing home, she had lost nearly four litres of blood. The doctors advised an immediate blood transfusion to save the lives of the mother and the child," recalls a friend. Even as time was running out, the Red Cross turned them back saying they did not have blood of the requisite O-positive group.
Help finally came from totally unexpected quarters when two resident doctors of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), when contacted by the distraught friend, came forward to donate blood for replacing the O-positive blood given by a private blood bank.
When asked, the doctors said that they could not have helped the patient at AIIMS itself since the blood bank at the institute keeps blood only for its patients.
These cases come close on the heels of a similar incident at a private hospital in Rohini on January 1. After being turned away by the regional blood transfusion
centre at the Deen Dayal Upadhyaye (DDU) Hospital for blood (also O-positive), the elderly parents rushed all the way to the Red Cross, only to be disappointed.
They landed at a private blood bank on Pusa Road, only to realise that their blood could not be drawn for replacement since the father was too old to donate and the mother was anaemic. In their case, however, the blood donated by a TV journalist and the blood bank owner himself could not save the patient's life.
Notwithstanding the government's reassuring statements on the availability of blood in the city after December 1, when a Supreme Court order formally banned all professional blood donors, patients and their relatives are having a harrowing time arranging for blood. According to the sources, the situation is particularly serious in case of positive blood groups of A, AB and O.
The problem seems to have been further compounded by the fact that the regional blood transfusion centres set up by the government at DDU, GTB, Lok Nayak, Hindu Rao
hospitals and AIIMS have virtually no coordination either among themselves or with other hospitals.
"As a result, whenever a patient needs blood in any part of the city and the local blood banks are unable to provide the requisite quantity of a particular group, the relatives rush all the way to the Red Cross headquarters at Parliament Street," says a official at the Indian Red Cross Society. Since the society, too, has been routinely turning away a large number of patents' relatives, the latter are being left with no option.
According to Divya Lal of the Indian Association of Blood Banks (IABB), which represents the blood banks in private, voluntary and government sector, the problem was not so much the availability of blood of all the groups but more of coordination so that it could be made available in time during emergencies.
"In all the cases that we have come across, the patients somehow managed to arrange for blood, but only after losing several hours in running from pillar to post," he
maintains, while suggesting that in cases of emergencies, the hospitals needed to guide the patients' relatives only to a place where blood of the requisite group was available.
Dr R.K. Srivastava, medical superintendent of the Safdarjung hospital, when contacted tonight, said the shortage of blood at their blood bank was actually a perennial one. "Even before January 1, we were collecting only 10,000 packs every year, against the demand of 30,000 packs and of the rest, we were depending on the Red Cross," he said.
Their blood bank, he added, tallied the blood stock situation with other blood banks every morning, adding that the right solution could be an inter-linking of all the blood banks through computerisation, "so that the latest availability status on various blood groups could be available at the touch of a button."
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
