VIJAYAWADA: Blood banks across the state are facing an acute shortage of blood as donations have dipped considerably. The biggest pool of donors — college students — is now unavailable to contribute owing to exams and the ensuing summer break. Among the worst affected are patients with negative and rare blood groups.
Between April 2017 and February 2018, 7,28,903 units of blood and components were collected through camps and individual donations, but only 6,67,127 units ended up being used.
Despite the shortage, as many as 2,000 units of blood are discarded in the state per year due to improper management. “On certain occasions, such as the birthdays of celebrities, blood donation camps are set up and we get more blood than we can store. Collected blood should be used in 35 days.
At times, we fail to use them within the period, leading to them being unusable. Neither the old nor the new government hospital in the city have cell separators so we can’t separate cells for storage,” senior doctor at Government General Hospital, Vijayawada, Dr Jaganmohan told TNIE.
Hospital staff admitted that the blood of donors is not usually checked before collection. “It is only later that it gets assessed for TTI, HIV et all and infected units discarded,” a source requesting anonymity said.