Cuttack: With no special facility for safely preservation of blood pouches in different wards of SCB Medical College and Hospital, patients’ attendants have been facing difficulties towards keeping those the freezes and freezers of shops in the nearby localities.
Out of more than 5000 patients undergoing treatment in different wards of SCB MCH at any point of time, around 300 patients are requiring blood transfusion daily, said sources.
Especially, Surgery, Neurosurgery, Plastic Surgery and accident patients undergoing surgery at Orthopedic are requiring blood transfusion. Similarly, patients are also requiring blood at other departments including Haematology and Medicine departments.
Attendants of patients requiring blood are availing the respective group of blood pouches from blood bank by arranging blood donors.
After bringing blood pouches from the blood bank, if the transfusion process is getting delayed, then the patients’ attendants are worried over preservation of the blood pouches.
Refrigerators available in some wards are not meant for use by the patients. The nursing staffs are saying that only injections can be preserved in the same freezes. They are also refusing the patients’ attendants to keep the blood pouches in the freezes citing space crunch.
“With no other option we have to move from one shop to another in localities having freezes requesting them to preserve our blood bags,” said some patients’ attendants.
In other seasons, the shopkeepers are agreeing to preserve the blood bags. But in the summer season, the shopkeepers especially dealing with cold drinks and ice-creams are refusing to keep the blood bags in their freezers and freezers which often remain filled with cold drinks and ice-creams to meet the increasing demand, they added.
As there is no special facility for preservation of bloods in wards, sometimes, though blood pouches are becoming unfit for transfusion due to improper storage and getting waste, the matter is yet to come to the notice of the hospital authorities.
SCB MCH Administrator Subas Chandra Ray however said that a discussion would be held with heads of the departments (HODs) for preservation of the blood issued by the blood bank in the wards till commencement of the transfusion process.
