Navi Mumbai: Rotary Club of Millennium City (RCMC), under ‘End Thalassaemia Now 2026’ plans to set up a Thalassaemia centre along with DY Patil Hospital in Nerul, Navi Mumbai.
This centre is in addition to the centre run by RCMC along with NMMC hospital in Vashi since 2012. Under End Thalassaemia Now 2026, RCMC is currently serving more than 50 Thalassaemic children.
With the new centre, RCMC will be able to cater to the needs of more than 100 Thalassaemic children. The new centre with DY Patil hospital is scheduled to be launched by August 15. End Thalassaemia Now is an initiative undertaken by RCMC along with other Rotary clubs in Navi Mumbai to work towards a Thalassaemia free Navi Mumbai.
The plans under Thalassaemia Now project was outlined by by Rtn. Diwakar Kallianpur, who took over as club president for RCMC for 2023-24. The project chair for this project is Rtn. Jitendra Jadhwani. “RCMC has designed and implemented END THAL NOW Program which is multiyear Rotary program having following three core objectives – care, awareness and prevention. It is a scourge that can be prevented and also managed provided all important stakeholders in the society come together to combat it,” said Rtn. Kallianpur.
Project Chair, Rtn. Jadhwani said, “Thalassaemia is painful to manage however there is silver lining to this disorder. It is completely preventable provided there is awareness among community about it. Thalassaemia has two variants – Minor & Major. The people having minor variant live almost normal life however they have to be careful when they decide to marry. They should avoid marrying another thalassaemic minor person. This can lead to complication of birth of Thalassaemia major child.”
Thalassaemia is a genetic disorder which can impact a child during birth. Such a child needs blood transfusions right through the life. These continuous monthly transfusions requires the child to be on iron removal medicines lifelong. These Thalassaemic children suffer from multiple complications and can also suffer critical organ failure including that of Heart and kidneys.
Approximately 2 percent of the world’s population has a thalassemia trait. This is a grave threat to mankind as marriage can lead to possibility of Thalassaemia major child. Thalassemia affects men and women equally and occurs in approximately 4.4 out of every 10,000 live births in the world. Hence awareness is essential across the world.
The life span of a thalassaemic child may be truncated in some cases depending on thalassaemia management of the particular child. An optimal management costs approx. Rs 2 lacs per annum. Many of the patients cannot afford these costs which leads to sub optimal treatment causing complications.
Care
Care for 600+ Thalassaemic Children across the rotary district by ensuring adequate blood supply for transfusions in comfortable environment of the Thalassaemia Transfusion centres and providing financial assistance for filters, medicines and various required pathological tests.
Awareness
Ensuring awareness of Thalassaemia disorder among young adults and how important it is to match the blood before marriage among young adults in colleges, communities and corporates for Thalassaemia trait. Thalassaemia minor detection tests are done in young adults to ascertain their Thalassaemia status so that they are pre informed of the same.
Prevention
Engaging with Gynecologists to ensure pre-natal Thalassaemia tests to screen out possibility of birth of Thalassaemic child.
