Dhanbad: Patients and their families at the Shaheed Nirmal Mahto Medical College and Hospital (SNMMCH) are facing hardships due to a severe shortage of blood, especially negative blood groups. The situation becomes critical, especially for thalassemia patients, road accident victims, and those requiring emergency surgeries.Sources in the hospital said the district’s eight blood banks together have only around 10 units of A ‘-ve’, B ‘-ve’, and O ‘-ve’ in stock.Negative blood groups are the hardest to arrange because they are rare and have fewer regular donors. The blood bank at SNMMCH, the district’s only govt blood bank, reportedly issues an average of 35 to 40 units of blood every day. However, patients’ attendants struggle to obtain blood for the past week due to inadequate stock, forcing many to run from one blood bank to another.Pankaj Kumar, who visited the blood bank to obtain B ‘-ve’ blood for a child suffering from thalassemia recently, said, “I was told that no stock was available and asked to arrange a replacement donor before blood could be issued.”In another case, the family of Sonu Mandal from Jamtara, who was admitted to the SNMMCH following a road accident, was asked to arrange ‘A-ve’ blood. His relatives procured blood from a private blood bank after a search at the govt blood bank failed.Brushing aside reports of blood crunch at govt blood bank, civil surgeon Dr Alok Vishwakarma said, “Adequate blood is available,” but refused to provide details about the present stock.
