The newly formed residuary state of Andhra Pradesh is facing a shortage of 1.71 lakh units of blood for treating patients in the state.

According to Andhra Pradesh State Blood Transfusion Council (APSBTC), the state is facing a severe shortage of blood donors because of which the gap between availability and demand is greatly widening during the past few days.

In view of this, the health and medical department of AP is seeking the center's help to fill up the gap and meet the growing demand for blood in the state. As per the APSBTC records last year, the demand for blood by patients in AP was 4.8 lakh units but blood banks in the state collected only 3.9 lakh units.  

According to state authorities, unlike in united Andhra Pradesh, not many NGOs, corporates, fans associations, etc are interested to coming forward for campaigning for blood donations from the volunteers. “Earlier, large number of associations, NGOs, student federations, colleges students and even corporates used to organise blood donation camps on various occasions, but of late no such activity is seen since past two years. This is mainly impacted because of the disturbance or the embargo created due to bifurcation of the state,” says an official in AP health department.

The dip in blood donors in the state is mainly attributed to lack of transparency among the blood banks. It is said that a few private blood banks are collecting blood from the volunteers and selling it to the patients at high prices by creating an artificial shortage. This has raised lot of doubts among the general public because of which not many are willing to donate blood to the blood banks.

“Movie stars and celebrities used to campaign for blood donation. Nowadays, we cannot see one person come forward for the cause. Lack of motivation is the main reason why new donors are not turning up,” said Dr A. Sreedhar Reddy, chairman of the Indian Red Cross Society in Krishna district.

Because of the acute shortage of the blood, the thalassemia patients are the worst hit. According Dr. Mohan of Indian Red Cross Society, thalassemia patients need freshly collected blood every 21 days. There are about 1,600 patients in the state who are facing acute blood shortage.

While on the other hand, the government blood banks are facing fund crunch and are not able to conduct blood donation camps and are managing with just 30 per cent of blood received from private blood banks.