Getting blood or blood products during an emergency is a major problem faced by the patients or their relatives. Apart from the stress of seeing their close ones suffer due to medical complications, the relatives of the patients have to undergo the cumbersome and harrowing experience of arranging blood bags, which often carries a hefty price tag.
In order to address the woes of the citizens in acquiring the blood or blood products as per the medical requirement, the Maharashtra state government had launched an ambitious pilot project early this year in February in two districts namely Satara and Sindhudurg.
The aim behind this project was to enable supply of high quality blood and blood products to the patients in and around these specific areas. With positive results from the project , the government has decided to further implement it in a phased manner across all the districts in the state, starting with Mumbai and four other districts with further plans to cover all districts within this financial year.
The ambitious project of the state health ministry in its initial phase, plans to focus on Mumbai and four other districts namely, Gadchiroli, Amravati, Ahmednagar and Parbhani. It is understood that the activities to finalise the functioning of the blood on call centres are already underway so as to initiate this programme based on the experience of the pilot project.
Under the blood-on-call scheme, all that citizens need to do is call the toll free number 102 provided by the government and register a request for blood, which will be at the earliest, passed on to the registered blood centre close to the patients locality. A representative from the blood centre will then take the blood sample from the patient and then deliver the blood suitable to his or her Rh group at a very affordable price of Rs 450 at the hospital.
Interestingly, considering scale and demographic structure of Mumbai, the Maharashtra State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC), which is spearheading this scheme, is trying to get a unique toll free number specifically for Mumbai. It is understood that all the hospitals and nursing homes in the vicinity of the select areas have been asked to display the emergency numbers for acquiring blood from the state affiliated blood centres under this scheme, so that maximum patients get sensitised about this unique initiative.
Explaining the blood-on-call initiative, Dr Sanjaykumar Jadhav, assistant director from the Maharashtra SBTC said that the state government wants to bring the entire state under its ambit so that maximum people can be benefited from this scheme.
He further informed that under this scheme, the state government plans to cover all the districts of Maharashtra within this financial year by bringing in a total of around 200 blood storage centres including 10 centres in Mumbai. The estimated cost of implementing this project per district would be a minimum of Rs three lakh. The government has already established 10 storage centres within 10 km of range across Mumbai after mapping the city as per its geographic requirements and the population demand to cover the entire city. At the same time in Satara and Sindhudurg, the storage centres were established at a distance of 40 km based on the population of the area.
"Through this project we want to ensure timely availability of high quality blood to all the citizens throughout Maharashtra at an affordable rate, so that the patients life can be saved in time. Kick starting this initiative has been a huge challenge for us, especially since we were the first state to carry out such a project in this scale. However, the response we have received till now have been quite encouraging and we hope to replicate the success story across all the districts throughout state,"says Dr Jadhav.
Current scenario
From the pathetic levels in the 70s , the state today has come a long way to become one of the top blood generating states in the country mainly due to the government initiatives towards increasing blood volume generated within the state through blood camps.
As per the government statistics, in 1997 the situation in the state with respect to blood donation camps was very low, hardly generating 3. 60 lakh units of blood per year, wherein one unit consisted of 320 ml blood. According to Dr Jadhav, only 38 per cent of citizens voluntarily participated throughout 2500 camps organized across state.
"But now the situation had drastically changed. Today we generate almost 14.14 lakh units of blood each year with 95 per cent contribution coming from voluntary donors participating in 20, 000 blood donation camps organised annually by the state government. We have even surpassed the requirement set by the WHO which stipulates that each state should generate blood through blood donation camps from one per cent of its population," Dr Jadhav pointed out.
It is understood that at present, there are about 134 blood storage units and 291 blood banks in the state, wherein 78 blood banks belong to the state government and municipalities. The Red Cross Society has 12, while 183 belong to various trusts and NGOs and 18 are held by private organisations. Apart from the given blood bank statistics, there are 199 blood component separation centres in the state as well.
Other initiatives
Apart from its pet blood-on- call project, the Maharashtra health ministry is also involved in a slew of other projects as well to ensure better patient serviceability through blood and blood products. The state government also had recently launched a unique haemovigilance programme, to track and monitor the quality of blood and blood products supplied to the patients, right from the point of collection to the transfusion stage in a bid to safeguard the healthcare interest of the patients in the state.
Through this initiative, which is again a first in the country adopted by any state for checking the quality of the blood, the government aims to bring in a strong monitoring mechanism that will ensure availability of only high quality blood and blood products to the patients. The government is running this programme through the MSBTC starting with Mumbai and its satellite cities, on a pilot basis.
According to Dr Jadhav, under this pilot programme, all the blood banks involved in the collection and supply of the blood and blood products, along with all the hospitals acquiring the blood from the projected vicinity or area will be under strict vigil of their highly trained team. At present, the J J Mahanagar Rakta Pedhi and 65 registered blood banks in Mumbai will be under the purview of this programme, which will gradually be extended to other areas as well, based on the outcome from this programme.
"A major thrust for initiating this programme within the state is to control and completely nullify any incidence of human error, right from the stage of collection to dissemination of the same. Blood is an important lifesaving component and we want to see to it that the blood that is collected and transfused in patients are of highest quality without any slightest incidence of contamination."Dr Jadhav added.
As per the requirements, the state government had set aside around Rs.50 lakh initially for this pilot project , he informed and added that since it will be adopted in a phased manner the estimated cost involved in carrying out the project would be difficult to predict.
According to him all the steps are being taken by the government to adopt this programme across the state based on the results of this project, so that maximum benefit can be reaped to strengthen and re-define the blood donation and transfusion system adopted in the state.
Earlier the government also had launched an ambitious project to provide free prevention, detection and treatment options to the patients suffering from thalassaemia, haemophilia and sickle cell disease. With a view to get a better understanding of this programme, the Maharashtra state government had first launched this project in four districts Thane, Satara, Nasik and Amaravati initially on a pilot basis.
Through these districts they also aim to cater the nearby satellite towns and cities by bringing them under the ambit of this programme. Based on the final results of this project, which is currently underway in the said districts, the state government plans to extend it across the state.
Under this scheme the state government has set up special day care centres in the selected cities through which free detection services will be provided to the patients. The govt has already acquired and installed world class detection tools aimed at helping the patients in timely detection of the disorder or disease. Apart from that the state will also provide free blood transfusion, blood products, recombinant products and drugs like factor 8, factor 9, despheral etc along with nursing care and awareness on preventive measures to enable best patient services.
Maharashtra is the first state in the country to launch such a programme targeted to service thousands of patients suffering from these life long chronic disorders related to blood which is often too costly for the patients to treat.
"With the help of state intervention, it is now possible to target patients who have not been able to afford the treatment available due to the huge cost associated. In the coming years we hope to change this situation by making it more patient friendly so that maximum patients can be covered under this scheme", Dr Sanjaykumar Jadhav said.
Dr Jadhav added that as per the recent statistics there are around 4000 detected cases of thalassaemia and haemophilia each in the state apart from around 5000 cases of sickle cell disease. "Considering the huge disease burden that is present in the state today, we want bring in and adopt an effective mechanism that will help us to detect more such cases effectively so as to root out and address this issue at the ground level," stressed Dr Jadhav.