CM Kejriwal asks hospitals in Delhi to encourage people to donate plasma

The Delhi government had set up the country’s first plasma bank at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in South Delhi’s Vasant Kunj last week to streamline plasma therapy, a treatment in which plasma from a recovered patient is injected into an infected person in order to boost the immune response to the coronavirus.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday urged all hospitals treating Covid-19 patients in the city to counsel recovered patients at the time of discharge to donate their plasma, noting that even though the demand for the therapy has gone up, the number of people ready to donate is yet to pick up.

Addressing a digital press conference on Monday, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said the plasma bank has boosted the demand for the therapy but the availability of plasma has remained low. (PTI Photo)

The Delhi government had set up the country’s first plasma bank at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in South Delhi’s Vasant Kunj last week to streamline plasma therapy, a treatment in which plasma from a recovered patient is injected into an infected person in order to boost the immune response to the coronavirus.

According to the government, plasma therapy trials in Delhi have shown improvement in the condition of 34 out of 35 Covid-19 patients in government hospitals and 46 out of 49 patients in private hospitals.

The chief minister also announced additional features in the Delhi Corona mobile application, including dedicated helpline numbers given against each hospital and colour coding for bed occupancy to make sure that people trying to locate beds and contact hospitals can do so comfortably.

Addressing a digital press conference on Monday, Kejriwal said the plasma bank has boosted the demand for the therapy but the availability of plasma has remained low.

“We opened the plasma bank last Wednesday and since then we have found that the demand for plasma is much more than its supply. The number of people who require plasma is more than the number of people who are donating plasma. If things continue like this, the plasma stock at the bank will be over in just a few days,” he said.

Hospitals offering plasma therapy in Delhi include Lok Nayak Hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Lady Hardinge Medical College, Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital, Max Hospital, Saket, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Batra Hospital and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

To scale up donations, he said the government has deployed a team of doctors who are calling up all recovered patients and appealing them to donate plasma.

“If you receive such a call, please do not refuse to donate. I want to also request all the hospitals that whenever they discharge a recovered Covid-19 patient from their hospitals, they must counsel the patient for a few minutes. The hospitals must motivate them to donate plasma after 14 days of their recovery,” Kejriwal said.

He urged all residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) to encourage persons who have recovered from Covid-19 to become plasma donors and felicitate those who donate.

“I want to request the people of Delhi to come forward in more numbers and donate their plasma. There is no need to worry. You will not experience any pain or weakness, and the government will arrange transport for you. Some people are scared that if they visit ILBS hospital, they will contract the coronavirus disease. I want to clarify that ILBS is a non-Covid hospital. There are no corona patients there and you will not be infected,” he said.

The chief minister said the bank will be a success only if more and more persons who recovered from Covid-19 donate their plasma.

On Monday, Delhi crossed 100,000 Covid-19 cases. The chief minister said there is no need to panic as of the 100,823 cases, 72,088 have already recovered. The recovery rate in Delhi has gone up to 72% and the positivity rate has dipped below the 10% mark for the first time in nearly 7 weeks.

On the availability of beds, he said only around 5,169 beds of the total 14,986 were occupied as on Monday afternoon across all hospitals. The peak Covid-19 bed occupancy in Delhi so far has been around 6,200.

To further streamline the process of getting a bed, Kejriwal has directed all Covid-19 hospitals in Delhi to launch dedicated helpline numbers to handle admission and patient-related queries.

“The Delhi government received a lot of complaints from people that the phone numbers of hospitals offering Covid treatment is unreachable most of the time. Now all these hospitals have launched 24X7 authorised helpline numbers that are available on the Delhi Corona app. Any person who wants to reach out to these hospitals with Covid-19 related information can now dial these numbers directly from the app,” the government said in a statement.

The hospitals have also been colour-coded -- red, yellow and green --- depending on the availability of beds, with red denoting hospitals with very few or no beds available; yellow for hospitals which have less than 50 beds available and green for hospitals that have 50 or more vacant beds. All these features were made live in the Delhi Corona mobile app and the delhifightscorona.in web portal on Monday.

Dr Puneet Mishra, a professor of community medicine at AIIMS, said that a plasma bank helps ease the process of procuring plasma for patients. “Opening one centralised plasma bank is a good idea, but before opening more, the government should wait until ICMR comes out with the final result of their plasma trials. Besides, the government should now focus on increasing their ICU beds and ventilator machines,” he said.