In yet another botched blood transfusion case,
six Thalassemia-affected children were taken seriously ill after being
transfused with blood at District Headquarters Hospital in Nayagarh district, India.
Similar incidents have been reported from Burla hospital and Balasore District Headquarters Hospital. Two
patients at Burla had been given HIV positive and Hepatitis B positive blood, and
a three year girl child had been given Hepatitis C blood.
India has been a mecca of “medical
cruises” as American and other patients without adequate medical coverage found
they could both vacation in India and have a hip replaced for less than the
cost of their insurance deductible at home. But in just 2 recent years, over 2,200 patients in India contracted HIV from blood transfusions.
If you are still of the mindset that your doctor knows best, you might want to educate yourself about blood medicine. You can start with a column I wrote about the safety, or rather lack thereof, of blood as medicine.
Bill K. Underwood is the author of several novels and one non-fiction
self-help book, all available
at Amazon.com. You can help support this site by purchasing one of his books.
