Maharashtra: Govt proposes plasma bags for Rs 7,000, PCMC standing panel limits it to Rs 400

The rate was laid down by the civic standing committee, which turned down a proposal from the PCMC administration to increase the rate to at least Rs 8,000 per bag.

Coronavirus crisis, plasma bank, PCMC panel, YCM Hospital, Pune news, Indian express news

The PCMC has set up a plasma bank at YCM Hospital.

The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has decided to make plasma bags available at an affordable rate of Rs 400 per bag. The state government had earlier recommended that government hospitals charge up to Rs 7,000 per plasma bag sought by private hospitals to treat their Covid-19 patients.

The rate was laid down by the civic standing committee, which turned down a proposal from the PCMC administration to increase the rate to at least Rs 8,000 per bag.

The PCMC has set up a plasma bank at YCM Hospital.

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“The committee has been of the view that we should keep plasma bags at an affordable rate… therefore, we are charging Rs 400 per bag for outside patients,” said Municipal Commissioner Sharavan Hardikar. “The state government has not made it mandatory but has said that we can charge up to Rs 7,000 per bag of convalscent plasma,” he added.

While, the PCMC administration said it will not provide any remuneration to plasma donors, the Youth Congress unit in Pimpri-Chinchwad has decided to pay Rs 1,000 to every donor.

Dr Rajendra Wable, dean of YCM Hospital and Medical College, said, “For collecting 400 ml plasma from a donor, we have to incur an expenditure of at least Rs 10,000-12,000. This mainly includes purchasing plasma bags that cost nearly Rs 8,500. Then we have to initiate a process wherein we collect the plasma by separating white blood cells, red blood cells and platelet, and then again put them back…”.

The YCMH administration had urged PCMC to charge at least Rs 8,000 for outsiders who want plasma. “However, our proposal has not been approved,” he said, adding that plasma is given free of cost to patients of YCMH.

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The PCMC chief said his administration has now moved a proposal for purchasing 500 plasma bags. “We are awaiting the standing committee nod for this,” he said.

Dr Aniket Lathi, who is part of the team which collects and administers plasma to Covid-19 patients, said, “If plasma therapy is given to early-stage Covid-19 patients , the chances of success are very high. If it is given at a later stage, esecially when the patient is on ventilator, the chances of the therapy succeeding is less. If a patient’s organs are damaged, then the success of the therapy can’t be guaranteed. We have seen that plasma therapy success is up to 80-90 per cent if it’s given early…”.

BJP’s Pimpri-Chinchwad unit president Mahesh Landge said the party was in favour of paying a remuneration for donors as it would encourage more donors to come forward. “I will take up the issue with the civic administration,” he said.

Patients at private hospitals, meanwhile, are paying a huge sum for plasma bags. “My father was given plasma therapy at a private hospital. The private hospital bought one plasma bag for Rs 10,000 while we purchased another bag from YCMH hospital for only Rs 400,” said the daughter of a patient.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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