THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There is severe shortage of blood and blood components at the Regional Cancer Centre in the state capital. The worst hit are the leukaemia and lymphoma patients, constituting almost 15 percent of all cancer patients coming to the RCC for treatment. These patients may require as much as 120 units of blood in their complete course of treatment. The several rounds of chemotherapy that they have to undergo easily destroys the blood components, especially platelets, which will have to be given for the patient’s recovery.Several relatives of patients like Kunjumon from Kattappana, who had to bring in scores of donors all the way from Idukki for his brother, have been requesting the extension of bleeding time till evening. ‘’But we can’t just store the collected blood just as it is. We need to screen it for several diseases like AIDS, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B and so on. Sometimes we have to separate it into components and process the blood before storage. All this requires time and is done in the afternoon every day,’’ said Dr Vijayalakshmi.With the RCC poised to become a National Institute for Cancer, expansion of the blood bank with adequate staff is not something that can be wished away by the state government, feel the patients. At present, the bank has just two nurses, one nursing assistant, four permanent technicians, five technicians on daily wages and just three doctors.
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