Angul: Patients at Angul district headquarters hospital are finding it hard to arrange blood, thanks to the unavailability of blood in the DHH. The desperation of attendants outside the blood bank is clearly visible with everyone coming out of the banks empty-handed.
The attendants, looking after their dear ones in the hospital have to go through unwanted problems and shell out huge bucks to arrange blood in cases of emergency. A look at the blood bank board clearly states that there is not a single drop of blood of any group in the bank.
In such scenario, the only hope is a few NGOs who provide free blood. On the other hand, brokers and middlemen make out the most of the situation and bungle the attendants.
This has spread resentment among the attendants who demanded immediate steps to store blood in the DHH.
“We cannot get even a single unit of blood. Our patient is critical and if he passes away, we cannot forgive ourselves as we could not arrange blood for him. Will the hospital authorities bring him back to life if he died? Even as the government boasts of blood banks and pumps in crores of rupees, the real picture is something different,” an attendant expressed his anger.
Awareness programmes and camps for voluntary blood donation by government hospitals and the administration seem to have failed to make any impact on the ground.
According to reports, at least 40 blood units are provided to the hospital from the blood bank every day. The blood units are highly required especially in delivery and surgery wards.
However, of recently, patients are having harrowing time due to lack of blood units in the blood bank. Many are forced to transfer to other hospitals.
This situation has been prevailing since last two to three years. But, no official is bothered to take steps in this regard. The situation worsens during summer as there are less donation camps this time.
There was a time when at least 100 blood units were collected in a camp. But, nowadays, only 30-40 units are hardly being able to be collected which is not even enough for a single day in the hospital.
Similar is the situation in two other blood banks at Talcher and Athmallik in the district. The hospital authorities have also expressed their inability to arrange blood and send patients to other hospitals.
After elections, two-three blood donation camps were to be done. However, many politicians walked away after they lost the election, a medical staff said.
PNN