Free Blood to Patients - Uttarakhand

What is the Free Blood to Patients initiative in Uttarakhand?

Free Blood to Patients is an initiative of the Department of Medical Health and Family Welfare, Government of Uttarakhand, implemented through the National Health Mission, under which blood is made available free of cost to patients admitted in government hospitals across the state.

The reason it exists is money at the wrong moment. Blood itself is never sold in India: donation is voluntary and unpaid, but a blood bank does charge a "processing charge" that covers screening for HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, syphilis and malaria, component separation, cold-chain storage and cross-matching. For a family already paying for admission, medicines and travel, being asked for that charge in the middle of a surgery, a delivery haemorrhage or a road accident is exactly the point at which treatment stalls. Uttarakhand's initiative removes that charge for admitted patients in government facilities.

Free Blood to Patients sits alongside the state's other out-of-pocket-reduction measures rather than standing on its own. The Free Diagnostics Scheme, launched on 12 August 2021, provides 208 pathological tests free of cost at 254 public health institutions to 110 in Kumaon and 144 in Garhwal: running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year at District Hospitals, Sub-District Hospitals, Community Health Centres and Primary Health Centres. The Free Essential Drug Scheme supplies a list of 871 drugs, 111 surgical items and 94 sutures through centralised warehouses in all 13 districts. Together with free blood, these three cover the bulk of what a family would otherwise pay cash for during an admission.

Who is eligible for free blood in Uttarakhand?

You can get blood free of cost if:

• You are an admitted patient (IPD) in a government hospital in Uttarakhand, a District Hospital, Sub-District Hospital, Community Health Centre, government medical college hospital or other state health facility with an attached or linked blood bank.
• Your treating doctor has raised a blood requisition stating the component and the number of units.
• The unit issued has cleared grouping and cross-matching for you.

There is no income limit, no BPL condition, no caste condition and no domicile condition attached to the entitlement. A pregnant woman with post-partum haemorrhage, a road accident victim, a dialysis patient, a surgical case and a thalassaemia child on lifelong transfusion are all covered on the same basis: admission plus a doctor's requisition.

You are not eligible if:

• You are not an admitted patient, and are asking a government blood bank to issue blood for use elsewhere.
• The patient is admitted in a private hospital, where that hospital's or that private blood bank's notified charges apply.
• You want blood stored in advance for personal or family future use, blood banks do not run personal reserves.
• The request is for autologous or directed donation arrangements outside the hospital's transfusion protocol.

How to apply for free blood at a government hospital

1. Get the patient admitted at the government hospital. The entitlement follows admission, so make sure the IPD registration is done and you have the IPD number.
2. Ask the treating doctor to raise the blood requisition. Only a doctor can do this. The requisition names the patient, the blood group, the component — whole blood, packed red cells, platelets, fresh frozen plasma, and the number of units.
3. Take the requisition and the patient's blood sample to the hospital blood bank. The blood bank does grouping and cross-matching. This step cannot be skipped and takes time, which is why requisitions for planned surgery should go in a day early.
4. Collect the issued unit against the blood bank's issue register. Ask for the issue slip; it is your record that the unit was released and that no charge was taken.
5. Return the empty bag to the blood bank as required by the hospital's protocol, and report any transfusion reaction to the ward staff immediately.

How to find blood if the hospital blood bank has no stock

1. Open e-RaktKosh at eraktkosh.mohfw.gov.in, the Government of India's centralised blood bank management system.
2. Search by state, district and blood group to see which blood banks near you hold stock, and of which component.
3. Note the blood bank's address and phone number from the listing and have the hospital staff coordinate the transfer, rather than travelling yourself with a requisition the other bank may not accept.
4. For a thalassaemia patient, use the dedicated thalassaemia login on e-RaktKosh to register the patient, send an advance request to a blood bank for a specific date and track the status of earlier requests. Advance requests are the single most effective thing a transfusion-dependent family can do.

Voluntary donation is what makes the whole arrangement work. Uttarakhand has NABH-accredited voluntary blood banks. The IMA Blood Bank of Uttarakhand, for instance, is a not-for-profit blood bank running on 100% voluntary donation, and provides blood components free to children with thalassaemia and to patients below the poverty line.

Common problems and how to fix them

• A donor is demanded before blood is issued. Replacement donation is being phased out under national blood policy and cannot be made a precondition for an admitted patient. Escalate to the hospital superintendent.
• A charge is demanded. Ask for a printed receipt. A demand that cannot be receipted should be reported to the Chief Medical Officer of the district.
• Group not available. Ask the blood bank to search e-RaktKosh and arrange an inter-bank transfer. Rare groups take longer, which is why elective surgery requisitions should be raised early.
• Platelets needed urgently. Platelets have a short shelf life of about five days and are often not held in stock at smaller facilities. Expect a referral to a district or medical college blood bank.
• Cross-match incompatible. This is a safety finding, not a refusal. The blood bank will look for a compatible unit.

Is there an application form for this scheme?

No. Free Blood to Patients is an entitlement built into government hospital care, not a scheme with a beneficiary list. There is no online portal to register on, no sanction letter, no bank account seeding and no annual renewal. Anyone asking you to pay an agent to "get your name added" is running a fraud.

Help and grievance redressal

• 104 Health Helpline Uttarakhand: toll-free, 24x7 medical advice and complaints line run by the National Health Mission.
• 108 Emergency ambulance: free, 24x7, across all districts.
• Hospital superintendent / Chief Medical Officer of the district for a refusal of blood, a demand for money, or a demand for a replacement donor.
• e-RaktKosh at eraktkosh.mohfw.gov.in for blood bank stock, camps and thalassaemia requests.
• National Health Mission Uttarakhand at nhm.uk.gov.in for programme-level queries.

A note on what is not published. The state has not put a single consolidated government order for this initiative online in an easily traceable form, and the exact charge schedule that is being waived is set at blood bank level. The entitlement itself; free blood for admitted patients in government hospitals: is what the Department of Medical Health and Family Welfare states, and that is the line to quote at the counter.