MADURAI: A petition was filed before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday, seeking a direction to operate a blood separator machine, which has been lying idle in the Dindigul Government Hospital.
Petitioner R Rajaselvan of Dindigul district said the machine would separate the blood as three components — red cell plasma, platelets and leucocytes (white blood cells) — all of which can be transfused to different patients based on the needs. Normally if the blood is stored without taking up separation process, it could be kept only up to 35 days.
But the separated blood molecules could be stored for one year if the separation is done under minus 40 degree Celsius. If theseparation happened under -80 degree Celsius, the blood could be stored up to even five years. The separation should be done within six hours of the blood collection, for which the machine would be needed, said the petitioner.
While the government medical colleges in Chennai, Madurai, Tiruchy and Tirunelveli were operating such machines, 17 government hospitals, including the Dindigul one, were provided with the machine worth `75 lakh. But since the state Health Department failed to deploy trained manpower, those machines were not used for more than six months, the petitioner said.
As the purpose itself was getting defeated, the petitioner sought the court’s intervention.
When the petition came up for hearing, a Division Bench of Justices K K Sasidharan and B Gokuldas directed the government pleader to get instructions from the Health Department.