The great Indian blood crisis: Stretch a helping hand this ‘World Blood Donor Day’

Image courtesy: http://social-welfare-society.weebly.com

Today technology has reached such levels that manufacturing mostly anything is a possibility. From artificial lungs to heart to kidney and foot, everything is manufactured but for blood. Nobody can claim that they have ‘made’ blood. It has to come from a generous donor, that too a human one.

The aura around blood donation is anything but positive in the Indian scene. With a population of nearly 1.2 billion, blood transfusion can prove a tricky business in a developing country like India. Factors ranging from shortage, to attitudes, to sentiment, to reach, all contribute to this complex network in their own ways.

Image courtesy: www.mediccast.com
Image courtesy: www.mediccast.com

Donating is a generous affair, but the challenges before the final act are many. Lets first look at what blood donation looks like in India

Facts

Believe it or not, against a demand of about 4 crore units every year, we manage to collect only 40 lakhs, leading to an acute shortage of supply. A good part of the demand in India comes from the increasing number of cancer patients and accident victims. It is found that every 2 seconds a new patient needs blood! Imagine the numbers created in just an hour if this is true!

Image courtesy: inhabitat.com
Image copurtesy: inhabitat.com

In India, people mostly depend on what is called ‘replacement blood’, which means your relatives and people known to you supply blood. This becomes difficult when you can’t find the type of blood you need in your family, which can happen a lot. This is when we have to turn to merciful volunteers or worse professional donors(take money in return for donating).

iMAGE COURTESY: derasachasaudablog.wordpress.com
iMAGE COURTESY: derasachasaudablog.wordpress.com

The worst deterrent of successful transfusion of blood is lack of facilities in remote areas and the issuing of whole blood without further processing. Whole blood can cause extreme infections and diseases if not cleansed. And since further checking and processing of blood needs equipment, space and hygiene facilities, many camps happily ignore the need.

Attitudes

Well another sad thing is that in our country there is a huge racket behind blood donation for money. People supply donors in return for money and loot the recipients. Are we surprised? Arrgh …I don’t think so

Getting volunteers is a harder task as the illiterate don’t understand the process, most others don’t care and some ‘fear needles’ and blood! In fact statistics also say that we lose most potent donors due to their fear of injections! And the irony is somebody needs just that to live!

Image courtesy: www.thelondonskinandhairclinic.com
Image courtesy: www.thelondonskinandhairclinic.com

This is not the last! Unfortunately most people entertain myths about donating blood. They are unaware that blood is replenished by one’s own system after donation and there is no unbearable pain while donating.

Well, all we can hope for is that more people be made aware of what blood donation demands and don’t give space for misunderstandings, because now we really can do without them.

What you can do

World Blood Donor day is around the corner and here are a few blood banks you can put to good use

Sankalp India Foundation- Write to them on their official website http://www.sankalpindia.net

friends2support.org- Give details in the website

Rotary Blood Bank- Write to them at connect@rotarybloodbank.org

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