The guardians of a 7-year-old child from the city were subjected to two nightmares on Wednesday - first when they were told that their little boy has cancer, and second when they were made to run from pillar to post for blood for him, thanks to alleged apathy by the caregivers.
Sheikhu, son of Mohammad Shamshad Alam who lives in the Machhatta area, was admitted at Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) on Tuesday with a bloated stomach and abdominal pain. On Wednesday, his guardians were told he has leukaemia and needs blood platelets - something doctors say often happens in such type of cancer, and can be addressed by transfusion.
Sheikhu's neighbour Neeraj Kumar approached Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) on Wednesday morning for O positive blood platelets. He was told that the blood component separator machine (which divides platelets and other components of blood) was lying defunct for the last one fortnight. Then, Neeraj went to the Jai Prabha blood bank, but the officials there refused to provide him platelets and said he needed a requisition letter from the NMCH - something that Neeraj said the NMCH doctors never told him.
Neeraj said he had showed two blood donor cards - which blood banks provide to voluntary blood donors so that they can get blood when necessary - but the blood banks officials refused to give him blood. He then went back to NMCH in the evening to collect the requisition letter and was provided with platelets only after he showed the requisition letter to the Jai Prabha blood bank officials.
"I showed the two blood donor cards but I was not given blood. The blood bank officials asked me to provide a requisition letter from NMCH, but I was not provided with any requisition letter," Neeraj told The Telegraph. "So I want back to the hospital to get the requisition letter and came back again at the blood bank to collect the platelet. I am disappointed with both the hospital and blood bank's attitude. Had the hospital provided me the requisition letter in the beginning, I would not have had to take the pain of revisiting the hospital, while on the other hand the blood bank officials should also have provided me platelet on the basis of donor card I showed them."
Manoj Kumar Sinha, joint director of information, communication and education of Bihar State AIDS Control Society (BSACS) under which the Jai Prabha blood bank runs, said the blood bank officials did nothing wrong.
"The norms say that the patient's kin has to provide the (hospital) requisition letter along with the patient's blood report. Nobody can be given blood or its components straightaway because this might lead to confusion and medical error," said Sinha.
B.B Sinha, chairman of the Red Cross Blood Bank that runs a few blood banks, agreed. "The donor card only helps people to get blood or blood components without donating blood as the concerned person has already voluntarily donated blood earlier," Sinha said. "However, it has to be seen whether the donor card is more than a year's old or not because a donor card is valid only for one year. It has to be seen whether the donor's card which Neeraj provided was valid or not. Second, even if any person provides a donor card, we ask the person to provide the requisition letter of the concerned hospital where the patient is admitted. This is norm. We can't provide blood to any person randomly."
NMCH superintendent Anandi Prasad Singh said he was unaware of the incident and promised to probe the matter.
Dr B.P. Jaiswal, under whose unit Sheikhu has been admitted, also pleaded ignorance.
"I don't think that the patient was not given the requisition letter," Jaiswal said. "There are senior residents, doctors and interns at the hospital. They always take care to see that the requisition letter is provided to the patient's kin in these types of cases. What happens in these types of cases that the patient's kin are always in panic when they don't get blood or platelets on time. Sometimes they even forget to take the requisition letter to the blood bank, which is already provided to them by the hospital, because of their emotional trauma. In this case also, the same thing might have happened."
Another city doctor, A.K. Thakur felt harping on process is not always right. "Delay in blood transfusion in cases of leukaemia patients may endanger their lives. Those running the blood bank should not be mechanical in dealing with such cases," he said.
