Despite ongoing pandemic, thalassemia patients receive their due in Chandigarh

According to Rajinder Kalra, who heads the trust which operates majorly out of PGIMER, as well as GMCH-32, his organisation has been able to meet the blood requirements of their patients because they already have an established group of donors and an extensive network of people who believe in the cause.

“We have registered donors who have never hesitated to come in and donate blood, even throughout the lockdown period and after. Furthermore, we have support of the government hospitals who we work with, who have never hesitated in helping us set up these banks in their premises,” says Kalra.

Though the head of the trust makes the gargantuan task of facilitating a constant supply of blood for his patients sound easy, ensuring that blood banks don’t dry up takes a lot of effort.

Though the demand for blood also reduced in the early months of the pandemic, this demand has surged again since the lockdown ended.

Even if OPDs are still shut, the emergency of PGIMER is functioning in full capacity, and the blood requirements for thalassemia patients, who cannot survive beyond two to three weeks without a transfusion, remains constant.

Kalra and his team have been organising special blood banks on every Saturday since June 6, receiving an average of hundred donors in each session.

Ensuring that donors turn up regularly every week is necessary to meet their annual requirement of 9,000 units of blood to ensure the survival of all patients registered with them.

In fact, the trust has been functioning so smoothly during the pandemic, that people from the NCR region have also began seeking treatment from PGIMER, rejecting treatment at the much closer centre at AIIMS Delhi.

Amolak Singh, a man from Noida whose 21-year-old son has Thalassemia, has now registered him with PGIMER for regular blood transfusion.

“During the first few weeks of the lockdown, we were devastated. AIIMS was turning people away, their focus was on Covid-19 and they were overwhelmed. So many parents like me have suffered for years, fighting daily to ensure their child survives. But then someone told me about the trust in Chandigarh, I called Mr Kalra and without hesitation he asked us to come in and facilitated the travel for us and everything,” claims Singh.

His son Tavsimar Singh, receives two to three units of blood at PGIMER after every three weeks. “He has been feeling healthy and we are no longer concerned about where we will get his next transfusion done,” says Singh.

While everything seems to be going per usual with the trust, Kalra is worried about a potential weekend curfew in the Tricity now, which will come in the way of holding the Saturday blood donation camps.

“But we will figure something else out then; we have to. It is a matter of life and death for our children,” he says.