Absence of blood transfusion units plagues fight against anaemia in Vadodara’s tribal land

According to a data collected by a city-based NGO,the level of anaemia among pregnant women and adolescent girls is as high as 88 per cent. Of this,61.5 per cent severely anaemic women and 37.7 per cent adolescent girls are in need of blood transfusion.

Archana Joshi,Director of Deepak Foundation,said: “There has been no drastic decrease in the number of women and girls with anaemia. Over 93 per cent of the tribal women in Vadodara district were found to be anaemic last year,and the statistics remain the same. But the level of severely anaemic women have gone down a little. We have identified 5.8 per cent of the women and 1.4 per cent adolescent girls to be severely anaemic,who are in need of frequent blood transfusion. But,over 50 per cent of the women do not get blood transfusion services due to the lack of facilities in the tribal areas.” She added: “The patients refuse to travel to government hospitals in the city as most of them are daily wage labourers and do not want to loose a day’s earning. Besides,some people are still apprehensive towards taking iron pills.”

Vadodara District Health officials confirmed the need for more blood transfusion units.

“Last month,we identified over 6,000 girls and 700 pregnant women with severe anaemia. The numbers are high,but we have started providing nutritious food to the schoolgirls. But many girls who do not attend school,miss out on the food,” said Dr RV Patel,Reproductive and Child Health Officer,Vadodara.

He added: “We organise blood donation camps in the tribal areas,but not many centres have blood transfusion facilities. So we instead provide iron tables to the severely anaemic women. But there still is a little resistance to this.”