New Delhi: Hyderabad police has arrested six persons, including four paramedics, on charges of diluting donated blood by mixing saline and converting one blood sachet into two.
According to police, prime accused K Narendra Prasad, lab technician (contract basis) at Government Maternity Hospital in Sultan Bazaar, along with T Naga Raju, lab technician at Sanjeevini Blood Bank and K Rakesh of Aditya Blood Bank, used the blood donated in government hospitals and mixed it with saline in the laboratory very cleverly.
According to the police, the trio used to buy empty sachets and transfer blood from a full sachet into an empty one. Narendra would then affix stickers of different blood banks, which he obtained illegally, and sold each 250 ml sachet for Rs 1100.
Police said that this came into light when a relative of a patient procured a 250 ml packet of blood from Narendra. When he handed over the blood scathe to hospital officials, they returned it saying the blood is impure and the packet contains only 150 ml blood instead of 250 ml.
Following a complaint lodged by the hospital authorities, police raided the blood bank and arrested the trio and three others, identified as K Raghavendra, Bora Soumya and P Naresh.
There are five government blood banks in the city and lab technicians in most of them are appointed on contracts, police said.
India is already facing acute shortage of blood and such acts raise serious question on operations of the blood banks in the country, its functioning style and accountability of staff.
According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, India faces shortage of blood to the tune of 3 million units annually. Only nine million units are collected in a year against the requirement of 12 million units - reflecting a 25 per cent deficit. Things get worse during the summer when the shortfall hits as high as 50 per cent.
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