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World blood donor day: Blood, the true elixir of life
SimpliCity News Team · 14 Jun 2018
Coimbatore: Four years ago, K. Malathi, had met with an accident. Her limbs were run over by a Eicher. She suffered from 13 fractures, acute blood loss and her muscles were torn apart.
After a private hospital said nothing could be done, she was taken to the government hospital where she was kept under observation for a day. However, no treatment was administered.
"Doctors had given up on my condition. More than 10 units of blood was needed to revive me. I felt hopeless”, Malathi expressed her despair.
“Thankfully, the members of NGO Annaikarangal took me under their wing before it was too late. I was shifted me to a private hospital for further treatment. Adding to the series of complications, my blood group ‘B’ negative made things even complex. To procure 13 units of a rare blood group was a real challenge”, she recollects her painful past.
“At last, I revived after undergoing 15 surgeries, administering 13 units of blood and one month in ICU. Now, I am back to normalcy. Eternally, I thank all the donors who donated their blood to save me”, an emotional Malathi said.
Hialing from a poor family in Anupparpalayam in Tirupur. Malathi is a maths graduate who now is a teacher at Al Wukair in Qatar.
Apart from a few physical scars, Malathi is back on her feet.
Malathi is a living example to prove the point “Donate blood, save a life”. Certainly, awareness on blood donation among the masses has reached widely, otherwise Malathi could not have managed to get 13 units of such a rare blood group.
L. Gopinath, one of the founders of NGO Annaikarangal, remembers very bit of the incident vividly.
“When we came across Malathi’s struggle, we decided to help her. We admitted her in private hospital, where all the surgeries and grafting was performed. It was during her case we really understood the impact of blood donation”, he said.
“These days it is not that difficult to get blood at the right time. Yet rare blood groups like Bombay ‘O’ positive and ‘O’ negative, ‘AB’ negative, ‘B’ negative and ‘A’ negative” are tough to procure”, he added.
More than the beneficaries, the doctors know the importance of blood donation and what it is to save a dying life.
A fourth year medical student at Coimbatore Medical College Hosptial, Kruba Chandrasekar, says that she realised the importance of blood after seeing patients suffer from anaemia and accident victims.
“During tragic road accidents, a patient could require upto 10 units of blood. Things could turn fatal, if the required amount of blood is not available at the right time. And, that makes blood donation very crucial”, opined Kruba.
“The sight of patients almost in their death bed and how they get revived because of timely administration of blood is what motivated me to donate blood. So far, I have donated twice”, she said.
“There is always a myth that woman should abastain from donating blood as they lose blood during their periods. Woman can definitely donate blood, ten days prior or after their periods. People having infectious diseases, smokers and alcoholics cannot be donors. Otherwise, people can donate blood every three months” she clarified.
According to 2016 reports from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India requires an estimated 1.2 crore units of blood annually, of which a little more than 1 crore units of blood was collected.