Instead of the 400 units it is supposed to have, the bank had a grand total of 19 bags on Tuesday. And it was supposed to be one of its better days; in the past fortnight, there have been days when there were only four or five units available.

The brunt of the unavailability is borne by people like Bachubhai Tadvi, an elderly tribal from Chhotaudepur, who needed an operation for an anal fistula, Shankar Rawal, an SSG employee who wanted blood for his son, or Suryakant Shah, who needed it for his cancer-stricken wife.

Ironically, both Rawal and Shah have donated blood more than a dozen times in their lives. Yet, both had to go running to the trust hospitals -- which demands an equivalent amount of blood plus Rs 300 in blood test charges -- in their hour of need.

That, in fact, is what the SSG Hospital blood bank, too, has had to do: for the past month, it has had to depend on the 10-20 units of blood the trust banks have been sending every alternate day. But in this case, too, the buyer has had to bear the cost. Ordinarily, government hospitals do not charge any money for blood tests.

``It is sad'', is all hospital superintendent Kamal Pathak can say.``There should have been an SOS the moment the stocks came down to 50-55 units.''While promising to check up why the alert wasn't sounded, Pathak adds, ``I urge people to come and donate blood at SSG for the thousands who are admitted here.''

But there isn't much chance of the appeal working. Officials point out on condition of anonymity that this is a chronic, summer-time shortage, brought on apparently by the conjunction of the wedding and holiday seasons. This is what the bank's sole coordinating voluntary agency Nagrik Raktadan Samiti, too, would have one believe.

Since the shortage is so predictable, why doesn't the Samiti, which has a one-point programme of collecting blood every fortnight, do something to avoid it? Samiti head Kanjibhai Rawal, while admitting the reality of the seasonal shortage, has no answers when asked why they don't anticipate it and stock up.

``I've done my best -- I've collected 70-odd bags from four camps over the past two months. But the turnout has been low'', says Rawal. That may be true, but it is also undeniable that the Samiti makes absolutely no attempt to educate relatives of patients about the need for replacements.

According to hospital sources and trust bank officials, the Samiti needs to brush up its operations. Before the summer of 2000 dawns on the city.