Ludhiana, March 21
Keeping in view the welfare of patients all over the region and to emphasise the need for making blood component therapy easily available all over Punjab, the Department of Transfusion Medicine of Dayanand Medical College and Hospital organised a press conference here today and declared that it was going to work on the motto of Economy in Blood, a concept still in its infancy in India, i.e. benefitting more than one patient with one unit of blood by breaking it into components. The conference was addressed by Dr J.G.Jolly, retired Professor and Head of Department of Transfusion Medicine, PGI and Dr Amarjit Kaur, Reader and In charge, Department of Transfusion Medicine DMCH.
Dr Jolly said currently the patients who required blood components were facing a problem all over the region as was evident from the fact that except for DMCH, very few hospitals in Punjab had the facility of separating blood into different components as required by various types of patients.
Dr Amarjit Kaur said every month, the department was providing components to at least 200 patients inside and outside the hospital (which means six to seven patients a day). Dr Jolly added that the patients who required packed cells were those suffering from chronic anaemia resulting from disorders such as kidney failure, malignancies, bleeding and thalessemia. Plasma was required for patients of bleeding disorders and long-term liver damage and platelets for patients of cancer and uncontrolled bleeding problem.
Dr Amarjit said that there was a need for wider accessibility of components inside and outside Punjab to save thousands of lives. She said that component therapy had broadened the application of transfusion therapy from blood volume support to specific replacement of needs.
