5,000 units of blood donated for a cause go waste

A huge amount of the 5,000 units of blood collected by the Punjab health department fearing spread of dengue has gone waste as the disease has actually not spread to such levels as to require the blood.

As dengue causes steep decline in blood platelets count, the state government wanted blood donation groups to volunteer for the cause and help patients by collecting blood. Over half a dozen NGOs worked to collect the blood.

More than 5,000 blood donors of the state are now feeling cheated as their blood has not been put to proper use. The 5,000 units of blood was collected within a week.

“There were quite a few number of patients who suffered decline in their blood platelet level, but it was not because of dengue,” a senior health officer said. Consequently, after partial utilisation of the blood stocks, the rest was “disposed of as a waste”.

Those who voluntarily donated blood are agitated over the “casual and irresponsible manner in which the health department officials have treated their blood”.

RC Gupta, secretary of a blood donors’ NGO, says even after platelets had been used the blood stocks could not be discarded as waste because important elements like plasma and RBCs in the blood could have been put to use for other patients.

He said it was callous and inhuman on the part of the state government to have treated huge stocks of blood as a waste. Moreover, he said, if there was no dengue, the government should not have raised false alarm.