PATIALA: A city-based NGO, Vande Matram Club, has said that during 2018’s dengue outbreak, the government hospitals in Patiala failed to cater to the poor due to dearth of platelets kits and their hefty costs.The members of the NGO said that a lot of blood donors helped people and took control of the situation.“We donated blood whenever there was a requirement. Some of our donors even donated platelets more than 20 times as one can again donate platelets after a gap of three to four days.“Blood donation camps were organised at various places to collect units of blood and platelets. Contact list of donors was also displayed for any emergency. Our donors were too enthusiastic to support,” said Gurmukh Singh, president of Vande Matram Club in Patiala.“However, the government failed to control the situation. It did not provide any apheresis kits to the poor, who then had to suffer a lot. We even tried to contact the company to provide more kits to end monopoly, but all in vain,” Gurmukh added.He said for the poor getting treatment was a costly affair as an apheresis kit costs Rs 8,500 in the hospitals. Besides this, the patients had to spend Rs 2,000 as service charges.The officials of the government-run blood bank at Government Rajindra hospital in Patiala said that they had supplied platelets rich plasma (PRP) to many.Surinder Singh, incharge of blood bank at Government Rajindra hospital said, “We provided PRP to over 350 patients. We arranged blood and platelets through regular camps. As many as four blood units are required to get one unit of PRP. A fee of Rs 300 was also charged from the patient.”“There were lesser patients in 2018 compared to 2017. There was no shortage of blood or platelets as we had managed swiftly by tying up with locals, who helped a lot in providing blood and platelets free of cost,” he added.Meanwhile, epidemiologist Gurmeet Singh Mann said that only two dengue deaths were witnessed in the district. “No stone was left unturned to kill the dengue larvae and mosquitoes. Due to lack of community participation dengue menace could not be countered the way it should have been,” he added.

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