NEW DELHI: It has been around 10 days that the first plasma bank of the country was inaugurated at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in the national capital. According to sources the nodal hospital is receiving around 20 donors on an average each day.
“It is great to see that many people are showing interest… There is a relatively good demand for plasma. But now there is a new protocol according to which unit of plasma is given against one unit of plasma from a replacement donor. So people who are requesting for the plasma are bringing along suitable donors,” said Dr Shantanu Dubey who is in-charge of issuing plasma at the bank.
At present, there are very few hospitals in the city which have permission to conduct the therapy on patients. The private ones include Max and Apollo, while the government hospitals granted permission to conduct plasma therapy are Lok Nayak Hospital and Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital. GTB Hospital has also been cleared to conduct the procedure.
“There are only a handful of hospitals who are offering this therapy. So the demand is equivalent to that. The hospitals which are authorised to administer plasma can send members of the patient to receive plasma on their behalf. An authorization letter is also required,” Dr Dubey added.
To encourage recovered patients more to donate their plasma, the state government is taking different initiatives, one of which includes arranging for travel of plasma donors to the plasma bank. Reimbursement of up to `1,500 of the travel cost borne by the donor is also being done to attract more donors. Earlier CM Arvind Kejriwal thanked donors for their contribution to saving the lives of corona patients by donating their plasma at the plasma bank.