Thalassaemia Patients in Hyderabad Suffer from Blood Reserve Dip

Blood donations dropped during the holiday seasons are drying up the blood bank reserve across Hyderabad, especially affecting the thalassemia Patients.

Thalassaemia patients who require regular blood transfusions are having problems as blood reserves have reduced, owing to fewer donations during the festival season.

Thalassaemia is a hereditary blood disorder in which the body produces less hemoglobin than normal. Due to this, patients require lifelong blood transfusions every two to five weeks. Thalassaemia patients had been asked to get donors for the past few weeks.

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There is usually a sharp fall in blood donations around the festive season, as people go on vacations, but the shortage this year has lasted longer than usual.

People are relying on Twitter and WhatsApp groups to obtain blood and have also approached other blood banks. In a day, blood banks used to get 50 to 60 requests for blood, but they are not in a position to provide blood to even 20 to 30 patients.

Blood Banks Running Dry Trouble Thalassaemia Patients

In the districts, they are calling previous donors and requesting them to donate blood but in Hyderabad, we are asking the patients to get donors if possible.

This shortage is attributed to the festival season with Christmas, New Year, Sankranti and Republic Day all occurring at regular intervals, as few donors come forward to donate during festivals. The society is hoping that they will get more donors by February.

Though some shortage occurs every year, it has been more pronounced this time. In summer too, there are such shortages because of two reasons. Firstly, people are dehydrated and so do not come forward to donate. Secondly, they get a lot of donors from camps at colleges but when they are shut for summer vacations we lose out on those donations.

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Donation drives were conducted at IT firms too but were stopped since the onset of the pandemic when firms switched to work-from-home. But now, with firms reopening their offices, they hope that they can resume the camps this year. The police department and NGOs provided a lot of help during the pandemic.

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Source-Medindia