E-Paper
Jharkhand high court bans blood replacement, orders BCSUs across districts
“The HC double bench of chief justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and justice Rajesh Shankar has banned the existing practice of blood-for-blood replacement and ordered the state government to set up BCSUs in all districts within three months. The court has categorically ordered that 100% of blood be collected through voluntary blood donation camps by both government and private hospitals henceforth, in compliance with NBTP guideline 8.5,” Khusboo Kataruka, the court’s amicus curiae, told HT on Sunday.
The Jharkhand high court (HC) has banned blood replacement in all hospitals across the state and has ordered the state government to ensure the establishment of blood component separation units (BCSUs) in all districts within the next three months, lawyers close to the development said on Sunday.
“The HC double bench of chief justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and justice Rajesh Shankar has banned the existing practice of blood-for-blood replacement and ordered the state government to set up BCSUs in all districts within three months. The court has categorically ordered that 100% of blood be collected through voluntary blood donation camps by both government and private hospitals henceforth, in compliance with NBTP guideline 8.5,” Khusboo Kataruka, the court’s amicus curiae, told HT on Sunday.
The court order, a copy of which is with HT, came on Friday. It has fixed the next hearing on the PIL filed by Atul Gera of Life Savers, a Ranchi-based NGO, in three months.
“The bench has also ordered immediate and effective implementation of the National Blood Transfusion Policy-2002 (NBTP-2002), which calls for doing away with the blood replacement practice and setting up BCSUs in all blood banks. The State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC), in its meeting in 2018, pledged to comply with it, but nothing has been done except the establishment of BCSUs in Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, and Giridih,” said Kataruka.
Kataruka further said that the HC has directed the state to set up a 24x7 grievance redressal system with a mobile application, website, and toll-free numbers for making blood available to patients without replacement.
“The court has ordered effective and complete implementation of the haemoglobinopathy guidelines-2016 and the sickle cell disease programme guidelines-2023 under the National Health Mission (NHM) in all day care centres across the state. It has ordered an inspection of all blood banks every three months. The bench has ordered the state to file compliance reports on March 20, 2026,” she added.
The PIL was filed after a thalassemia patient was transfused blood at Ranchi Sadar Hospital (RSH) and later tested HIV positive. The father of the child had written to the chief justice, which the court turned into a PIL. Subsequently, the HC bench also took cognisance of six thalassemia patient children, including a seven-year-old, at Chaibasa Sadar Hospital (CSH), who were transfused with HIV-infected blood in October this year.
