ES Reporter 

ITANAGAR, May 2: Ever since lockdown has been imposed to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a report of severe shortage of blood across hospitals in the state capital hitting patients hard.
Arunachal Pradesh Voluntary Blood Donors, (APVBD), Chairman Ramesh Jeke on Saturday underlined the severe shortage of blood across hospitals in the state capital after the lockdown was imposed.
"I have never seen such a blood crisis in my 11 years of service in the field. Our state which was already facing a deficit of blood supply, the Covid-19 lockdown has severely hit its limited reserve, ” Jeke said.
The lockdown has led to the shortage in the availability of blood for patients, depending on transfusion as a life-saving measure.
"It is a fact that blood and its components are considered important in medical science as hospitals and doctors become helpless without a continuous blood supply," he explains.
On regular days, Jeke said there are 15-20 blood transfusions done in RKM hospital alone, but after TRIHMS was declared Covid-19 hospital, and almost all patients diverted to RKM hospital, the number of blood transfusions has dramatically increased up to 35-40 per day.
In addition, he stated that patients being treated for aplastic-anemia, surgical operation, pregnancy complications, dialysis, etc require large amounts of blood.
Jeke said concerns about congregating at workplaces has led to the cancellation of many blood donation camps in the past.
 "The state's blood supply is dependent on donors participating in a blood camp.  We have already spent several weeks without any mass blood camp, so you can imagine the crisis , " he underscored.
Asserting that maintaining an adequate blood supply is vital to public health, Jeke appealed all especially healthy people to come forward and continue donating blood to save precious lives.
The volunteers of APVBD are currently camping at the RKM hospital campus so anybody willing to donate blood can either contact the NGO helpline number or go to the  spot directly.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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