Three persons, including a doctor, who run Venus Blood Bank at Malakpet in Hyderabad, were taken into custody by Special Operations Team (SOT), Rachakonda, for allegedly selling diluted blood to patients on Saturday.
Rachakonda commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that Chakravarthi, who is MD in anaesthesia and the owner of Venus Blood Bank, manager Sravan and technician Kumar were taken into custody and five packets of white blood cells and seven bottles of NS Sterile were seized from the blood bank. They were booked under 420 (cheating), 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide if such act causes hurt to any person), 272 (adulteration of food or drink intended for sale), 273 (sale of noxious food or drink) of IPC based on the complaint given by Ram Reddy , a relative of a road accident victim, Narasimha Reddy , who was admitted to Global Hospital, Byramalguda near LB Nagar. The blood dilution racket in the city came to light when the family of a patient in need of blood approached Venus Blood Bank.
“As the patient was in need of blood, Global Hospital authorities asked the family to make necessary arrangements. They went to Venus Blood Bank and bought two packets of blood by paying Rs 3,000. But the hospital doctors found the blood in diluted form and refused to infuse it to the accident victim,” SOT (LB Nagar) inspector P Venkateshwarlu said.
The victim’s family were forced to make frantic efforts to find a suitable blood donor. Subsequently, they returned to Venus Blood Bank and confronted the doctor and his staff about the supply of diluted blood. Technician Kumar dismissed this as a common practice.
Shocked by the response, they lodged a police complaint. “When we took Kumar into custody, he admitted to diluting the blood with NS Sterile,” police said.
LB Nagar Detective Inspector Ravinder Reddy said that the accused were in their custody and a thorough investigation would be carried out into the diluted blood supply issue.
Though police registered a case, doctors said that using sterile saline in blood was not harmful. Hari Kumar Nair, a senior herpetologist at Yashoda Hospital, said that there would be no harm if a patient is infused with blood mixed with sterile saline.
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