Should circulate

That is the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH), across the road from the Chennai Central station. It has been providing medical care from this space since the late eighteenth century, when John Sullivan, a writer at Fort St George, won the tender for constructing a hospital capable of receiving and accommodating "500 men and 30 officers". 

One of the facilities we take for granted in hospitals now is a blood bank. But that part of the medical profession is very recent. It was only in 1937 that Bernard Fantus of the Cook County Hospital in Chicago began refrigerating donors' blood, naming it a 'Blood Bank'. Following upon the work of Dr. Charles Drew, who oversaw the large-scale shipment of blood plasma to UK in the 1940s, the nature of blood banking changed. 

Today, large blood banks are commonplace in many hospitals. The RGGGH in Chennai has the largest one in the state. It is one of the nearly 3,000 blood banks across the country, most (~75%) of which are public / not-for-profit operations. Despite their best efforts, they are not able to meet the demand for blood. Projected at 14.6 million blood units for this year, demand outstrips supply by over 1 million units. On this day - the World Blood Donor day - go over to register as a donor here and make sure you do your bit to reduce that shortage!

Blood must circulate

By one estimate, India needs about 10 million units (1 unit = 450 ml) of blood for transfusion every year; considering that the USA uses up around 14 million units annually, the figure for India is possibly much higher. Most of the requirement in the USA is met through voluntary collections, but in India, they contribute less than 50%. Though the figure for Tamil Nadu is higher, at 82%, voluntary blood donation is still something that many people have misconceptions about: they are therefore rather apprehensive about going to a blood bank to donate blood.

Across Chennai, there are about 40 blood banks, government run and private, that together collect about a quarter of a million units of blood annually. Even allowing for weekends and bank holidays, that's roughly 25 units every day at each blood bank; in a city of about 7 million people, less than 5% donate blood in a year. With the demand for blood far outstripping supply, it is a challenge to encourage blood donation. To make it easy for potential donors, several agencies have created mobile blood banks to go around the city, taking the message of blood donation to the people. The pattern is more or less the same - a multimedia show about how blood donation is useful and even healthy for the donor, register the volunteers, do a basic screen and collect a unit of blood. The vehicles must get each day's collection back to the bank, because they only have the collection and storage facilities on board. The high-tech work of screening and storing the blood still happens at centralised locations.

The shape and the overall look of this collection vehicle of the Lions Blood Bank is probably intended to give the process a completely high tech feel!


If you were looking for blood banks in Chennai, this site has useful information