RAJESH SAWANT

The greatest challenge for medical facilities to remain functional during the Covid-19 lockdown period was the scarcity of blood and blood components, which are always needed for various emergency, transplant and cancer patients. Due to the lockdown, the donors from society could not travel to blood banks for making their donations and also many were scared to visit hospital based donation facilities. To tide over the crisis, I donated Platelets once and Blood once during the Covid-19 lockdown period and thus contributed to transfusion support for needy patients. Also, being the head of Transfusion services at a major tertiary care centre in Mumbai, encouraged many donors amongst the general public and facilitated their donations safely in our hospital blood bank. When most of the hospitals were refusing patients, we issued more than 2000 blood components between 23rd March and 7th June 2020 for transfusion for various patients admitted in our hospital. Keeping the staff motivated enough to attend work in the hospital and also ensure their safety at workplace was another challenge, which was met during this period. I am glad to state that I could achieve the above with the support of my family members and staff as well as hospital administration and management.