Chitwan, June 15

It has been reported that a large number of patients are suffering due to blood crunch in the district caused by lack of public awareness and necessary infrastructure development.

A large percentage of the population has been suffering from the blood crunch prevalent in the district due to lack of access, storage facility and required human resource, said sources.

According to Programme Officer Ram Shrestha at Central Blood Transfusion Centre, they failed to collect the required amount of blood due to their failure to raise awareness among the commoners.

“There is shortage of at least 10 to 20 per cent of the blood demand in the market,” said Shrestha.

A total of 230,986 units of blood was collected from different places while 310,623 units of blood was distributed to patients.

According to him, blood is transfused from as many as 105 centres of 72 districts in the country.

Hari Neupane of Nepal Red Cross Society said that they have not been able to supply blood as per the demand.

“Every year, patients suffer blood shortage especially from mid-April to July. Many people don’t know that they can donate blood.”

Senior physician at Bhaktapur Hospital Dr Kalidas Adhikari said that interested people, both men and women, between the age of 17 to 60 years can donate blood. Anyone above 45 kg weight with a well-functioning heart, lungs and liver can donate blood.

Also the concentration of haemoglobin in donors’ blood must be above 12 grams.

According to him, the donor must not be infected with jaundice, malaria, typhoid, AIDS, diabetes, tuberculosis, cancer, asthma, high blood pressure, hepatitis and kidney related diseases, among others.

A healthy male person can donate blood every three months while a woman can donate it maximum twice a year, whenever she is not undergoing menstruation, is not pregnant and is not breast feeding.

Regional Blood Transfusion Centre Bharatpur Chief Ramesh Kanta Poudel said that the centre had provided as many as 700 units of blood to a cancer patient and cancer patients needed more blood.

Likewise, thalassemia patients, pregnant women and a patient who has to undergo surgery requires more amount of blood.

The demand for blood in Chitwan is the highest in the country after Kathmandu. As much as 35,000 units of blood was distributed from the regional transfusion centre last year.

Cancer patients take up 50 per cent of the total blood collected in the centre. Blood is distributed from BP Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital that has established a blood transfusion centre on its premises.