Jana has to find a donor for his mother. And unless a donor with the rarest of rare ‘Bombay’ blood group is found chemotherapy cannot start.
KOLKATA: Visitors at Howrah railway station and Kolkata airport have a strange story to recount. It’s about a desperate man who is seen holding a placard, which reads, ‘Wanted Bombay blood group’.
Deepak Jana has to find a blood donor for his dying mother. His mother, Kalyani Devi, is a cancer patient counting her days in Baruipur on the outskirts of the city. And unless a donor with the rarest of rare ‘Bombay’ blood group is found, chemotherapy - her last hope for survival - cannot start.
Jana drew a blank at all the blood banks in Kolkata. As a last-ditch attempt, he decided to approach outsiders arriving in the city.
“I go to Howrah twice a week. And once a week to the airport - just in case somebody with ‘Bombay’ blood group notices my placard and comes to my mother’s aid”, Jana told a local newspaper.
Dr Prashant Chowdhury, Kolkata’s leading hematologist, says that the “rarest of rare blood group is named after Bombay where it was first discovered way back in 1952. The phenotypes of this group lack H antigen in the red cells and have anti-H in the serum.”
According to him, no more than 35 persons in India belong to this extraordinary blood group. “It is not as if only 35 people among a billion Indians have this blood group. But 90 percent Indians don’t know their blood group. Among those who know, there are probably around 35.”
He says that there is a fair chance of a Mumbaikar saving Kalyani Devi’s life - not because people with the rare blood group are only to be found in Mumbai as some might believe - but because Mumbai is thickly-populated and so the possibility of finding a person with the rare blood group is brighter in Mumbai than in a sparsely-populated region.
A Kolkata non-governmental organisation called Medical Bank is pulling out all stops to help Jana. Its secretary D Ashish says he has sent emails to blood banks across the country to zero in on persons with the rare blood group. But none have been found.
“Jana’s ordeal began 18 months ago when Kalyani Devi was diagnosed with uterine cancer during a gynaecological examination. Further tests revealed that she had a very unusual blood group, which threw doctors at Kolkata’s Chittaranjan Cancer Hospital into a tizzy. Chemotherapy can’t start without provisions for blood transfusion.”
“After running from pillar to post, Jana came to us two months ago. We have taken it up as a challenge.”
“Jana loves his mother so much that he is walking the extra mile - literally begging for the rare blood at the railway station and airport.”
D Ashish can be contacted at 033-25540084 and 0-9831062157
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}