Jakarta needs negative type blood donors
Jakarta needs negative type blood donors
JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta Chapter of the Indonesian Red Cross
(PMI DKI) has said it is having difficulty meeting the increasing
demands for B negative blood due to a lack of donors.
"There are only 53 negative rhesus blood donors in the city,"
said Suhantini, the head of blood transfusions unit of PMI DKI.
"With the small number of donors, it is difficult to meet the
demand. We get the blood from the same people while the number of
people who need this particular type of blood is always on the
rise," Suhantini told The Jakarta Post yesterday, adding that
there were an average of eight to 10 patients asking for negative
blood monthly.
Suhantini was responding to a recent advertisement in the Post
placed by a person named Lili, a resident of West Jakarta, who
needed B negative rhesus blood. Lili needed the blood for her 60-
year-old mother who was being treated at the Jakarta's Graha
Medika hospital for colon cancer.
The 53 donors, according to Suhantini, are Indonesians and
some Indians living in Jakarta. They consisted of 17 donors for A
negative rhesus blood type, 18 for B negative, four for AB
negative and 14 for O negative.
Besides the 53 donors, a number of expatriates living in the
city who are grouped in the Expatriate Emergency Blood Donor
Committee (EEBDC) are also regular donors for the red cross.
"Usually if we need blood of a negative type we contact them
since the percentage of Caucasians with negative blood is higher
than that of Indonesians," Suhantini explained.
She added that only 0.02 percent of the Indonesian population
has a negative blood type, while that of the Caucasian reaches 15
percent.
Meanwhile Lili told the Post that, as of Thursday, she had
received the needed blood from two Indonesians and seven
foreigners -- Caucasians and Indians. She had also received some
bags of B negative type blood from PMI DKI.
But she said that her mother still needed a lot of blood
because of her reduced thrombocyte level.
Dutch Red Cross
"Doctors have said that normal thrombocyte level is around
150,000 to 450,000 per cubic centimeter (cc), but my mother's
thrombocyte level is only around 20,000 cc, therefore she needs
at least 20 donors," Lili said.
Suhantini said she had contacted the Netherlands Red Cross,
but they were facing a shortage of negative blood at present. She
added that another possibility for obtaining more thrombocytes
for Lili's mother was by using an automatic machine.
But she added that the process was quite expensive.
"We prefer to wait for new donors before we resort to this
choice," she said.
Suhantini added that, in general, the Jakarta Red Cross is
still short of blood stock.
"As of today (yesterday) we have only 1,043 bags of blood. It
means we are still not safe because our security level is above
2,000 bags," she said, urging people to become blood donors.(als)