Show compassion & humanity, donate blood, gift life

It was about 20 years back while returning from a visit to some villages, to the district head quarters of Bhavnagar that we had to suddenly stop around sunset seeing a jeep which had just met with an accident. Stepping out, I saw a young saree-clad lady with blood injuries on her face. In her raspy voice with a Bhavnagari twang, she told us about her family members who had also been injured having lost quite some blood. I immediately sent my driver to get the ambulance to shift them to the nearby state run hospital and stayed back with them. She mentioned  that they were driving all the way from Mumbai to attend a wedding in Bhavnagar and this unfortunate accident had just ruined all their plans. The blood loss of her husband and near ones had me really worried. This particular case had a hospital near the place of accident but  what about the thousands of accidents that take place at various interior locations across the country. Would we have blood banks or even storage facilities, and more importantly, would we have sufficient donors to donate and recoup these facilities, my mind raced. Unbelievably, in a short span of fifteen minutes, my team returned with the medical team in the ambulance. The lady and her family members were carried in the ambulance and taken to the health facility. Quite concerned about their condition, my enquiries over the next few days gave me the solace that they had recovered, attended the wedding and then returned back to Mumbai. A small act of reaching out and ensuring they got immediate medical attention made a big difference.

Some years later, as the Collector and DM of Panchmahals, while travelling on the highways, seeing jeeps literally laden with passengers, as was the local style, would make my almost miss a beat. As I noticed the jeeps packed with men and women like ‘sardines’, coupled with their usually reckless drivers, that well chiseled face of the woman in Bhavnagar, with freshly plucked eyebrows and blood lines due to the accident & wound would pop up in my mind. While accident prevention is surely to be taken up, the need for creating a network of blood banks, and mobilizing the community for blood donation, and was imperative. I remembered the blood donation camp back in Mussoorie at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy, where many of us would donate blood. With the entire team at Godhra contributing, we set up a Red Cross blood bank in Godhra, back in 2002, functioning well even today. Jumping back to the present, someone like that lady on the Bhavnagar rural road needs blood every few minutes, anywhere in India. A road accident, a natural disaster, or childbirth with postpartum haemorrhage can completely change peoples’ lives – pushing them into disease, disability, and at times death.

Additionally, we have children suffering from Thalassaemia, who need regular blood transfusion. While there are blood banks and blood storage units across the state, we need more and more of us to volunteer to donate blood regularly. According to an official  report , in the year 2016, 10.9 million units of blood were collected annually,against  the need of 12 million units nationally. This is particularly relevant in India, where steady and safe supply of blood and blood products is critical for millions of patients with life-threatening conditions and complications.

Can each one of us pledge to donate blood at least once a year? Ahmedabad boasts of the largest number of centurion donors, including a woman, Ketki Shah who, against the commonly prevalent myth that “females can’t donate blood regularly”, has donated blood for more than hundred times. A step in this direction can help someone in dire need, like that lady in Bhavnagar and fill us with the joy of giving something very precious, our own blood, also toning our muscles of compassion and humanity.

The author is a Harvard-educated civil servant & writer, and has worked in the education sector  
jayanti.ravi.dna@gmail.com