District Wenlock Hospital is growing day by day, adopting state of the art equipment and rendering yeomen service to the society. Recently the Hospital started a Component Separation Therapy Unit to bring in efficient allocation of required blood component to the patients.

Explaining the need for such a unit, District Wenlock Hospital Superintendent Dr Prabhudeva says that blood has components such as Red Blood Cell (RBC), plasma and platelets, each one of which are required in different cases. For instance, anaemic cases need only the red blood cell or packed cells, burn cases need only the plasma while platelets are required to prevent bleeding.

“Earlier, whole blood (unseparated) was given to all the cases irrespective of the specific need of the case. But with the setting up of the unit, the victim can be given only that particular component which is required, saving wastage of other components that could be used for other patients as well,” Dr Prabhdeva said.

Wenlock Hospital is one of the first government set-up to have such a unit in the State. The blood bags are provided free of cost to BPL card holders and the poor while the APL families are charged Rs 250 per bag, those who are treated in special ward and outsiders are charged Rs 500 per bag along with replacement.

Dr Prabhudeva says that the entire set up cost Rs 60 lakhs, which was completely borne by the State government.

Though the hospital already had a blood bank of WHO standard, starting the unit was delayed as the hospital had to await permission from the Drug Controller of India.

He says that more and more people need to know about this facility available in the hospital because due to lack of knowledge many still go for whole blood. He says that since life of packed cell is 35 days and plasma can be kept for about a year, separation and storage of these two components is not a problem. But the life of platelet is only 5 days and hence platelets separation is taken up only on request.