Partth Thakur, a student of St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, is a thalassemia patient and wants to set up a blood transfuion centre in a Bihar village and is raising funds for the cause
Twice every month, 9-year-old Maaz Feroz, along with his 7-year-old sister Ayesha Feroz, travels close to 100 kms from their home in Bihar's Araria village for blood transfusion. Born with thalassemia, a rare blood disorder, the siblings will need regular blood transfusions for the rest of their lives. The lack of a blood transfusion centres in Purnia district, where they live, forces their father Feroz, a farmer who earns barely Rs 10,000 a month, to cross the border to Biratnagar in Nepal.
Parth Thakur, who is pursuing his MSc in Biotechnology from St Xavier's College, Mumbai, wants to construct a centre for the children in their own village and is raising funds for the cause. "I came to know about them at the National Thalassemia Welfare Society Conference held in December last year at the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi. I found out that there are 70 thalassemia patients in Purnia alone," said Thakur, who also suffers from the disease.
Thakur was earlier involved in starting a similar blood transfusion centre in Vadodara's Bhailal Amin General Hospital, which was set up with donor funds and is currently functional. "We will need Rs 11 lakhs to lease the land and for the equipment. While a recurring cost will also be there, we have already found donors who are willing to support the effort," Thakur said.
Thakur, who is also conducting a fundraiser on ketto.org, runs The Wishing Factory, an organisation that accepts the wishes of the terminally ill. "We asked the children what their wish was and they said they want a Barbie doll and a cycle, but I felt that we needed to do more for them because their issues were much larger than that," he said.
The proposed facility will be a four bedded one. It will have a blood bank and a basic laboratory to carry out tests along with a TV set for patients and one split air conditioner. So far a little over a lakh has been raised.
A MESSIAH
- Partth Thakur, a student of St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, is a thalassemia patient and wants to set up a blood transfuion centre in a Bihar village and is raising funds for the cause.
- Thakur is also conducting a fundraiser on ketto.org, and runs The Wishing Factory, an organisation that accepts the wishes of terminally ill patients.
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