CHENNAI: February 5: A request is put up by the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai for blood transfusion. The patient is a 46-year-old woman, diagnosed with anaemia. However, it took two days for a group of volunteers in the city to get her the blood because she fell under the category of people with one of the rarest groups –the Bombay blood group.
Bombay blood group was first discovered in 1952 in erstwhile Bombay, and hence the name. Its incidence is only four in 10 lakh people, and those in this group can receive blood only from a donor from the same group. Volunteers say, it is not an easy task and takes a lot of effort to arrange for this blood group. When this request was made, the team got to know about the availability of the same group in a hospital in Karnataka, through an NGO, Sankalp Foundation, that works for blood donation.
“We arranged a volunteer there to pick up the blood from Shree Mahaveer Blood Bank in Belgaum, who then handed it over to a bus driver, heading to Bengaluru,” said Srivatsa Vema, a member of Platelet Club. A deal was made in a blood bank in Bengaluru to store the blood, as it could be kept out only for a few hours. Srivatsa then, posted a message on his WhatsApp status, asking for help to transport it to Chennai.
One of the beneficiaries of the Platelet Club, who was heading to Chennai by train that evening, saw the message and got in touch with him. “After reaching Chennai, it was handed over to another volunteer at the railway station who then dropped it at the hospital,” said Srivatsa. The team has been transporting this rare blood group to different hospitals in State, mostly in Chennai, from various parts of India, even during the lockdown. The club is next planning to bring two units of Bombay blood group to Chennai, one each from Kerala and Gujarat.
“These will be useful for two patients, one at Salem and the other at Government Multi Speciality Hospital, Omandurar Estate,” says M Ashok Kumar, a voluntary blood donor. “Even during the lockdown, we transported a unit of blood from a private hospital in Chennai to Salem. After all, it requires a lot of coordination on social media to find volunteers,” he says.
There are only 18 Bombay blood group volunteers in the whole of Tamil Nadu, says Srivatsa, adding that they will be requested to donate blood only when there is no availability of the group anywhere else. “Despite it being a precious blood group, a few hospitals waste it. Recently, a private hospital discarded a unit of the blood. It just hurts to see such things. They should source it only if there is an urgent requirement,” he adds.