Dr. B. Barooah Cancer Institute (Blood Centre)

Dr B Barooah Cancer Institute, BBCI, is not a general hospital. It is a dedicated cancer centre: the only one of its kind in all of Northeast India, serving patients from Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh. When a family in Tinsukia or Imphal or Shillong hears the word "cancer", this is the hospital they are sent to.

That means the BBCI blood bank carries a very specific weight. Cancer patients need blood constantly, for the surgeries that remove tumours, for the chemotherapy that makes their blood counts crash, for the platelet transfusions that keep them alive during treatment. The BBCI blood bank, with component separation, is where all of that happens.

A normal surgery uses blood once. A cancer patient may need it every week for months. Chemotherapy destroys blood cells along with cancer cells, red cells fall, haemoglobin drops, platelets crash to dangerous levels. Without platelet transfusions, a single chemotherapy cycle can become life-threatening. That is why BBCI's blood bank is not just a storage room: it is a living, constantly replenished supply of the specific components that keep cancer treatment going.

For donors, this means something different. When you donate at BBCI, your platelets may go to a child with leukaemia the same afternoon. Your red cells may go to a patient recovering from surgery the next day. The impact is visible, immediate and personal, the patients here are not anonymous. They are the ones whose families posted requests on the register, whose names you never learned, but whose lives your blood held together while the treatment did its work.

Walk in during hospital hours with a photo ID. A nurse checks your haemoglobin with a finger prick, asks a few health questions, and if all is well, the donation itself takes 8,10 minutes. Eat properly and drink water beforehand, here is what to eat. After juice and biscuits and a short rest, you walk out and your blood begins its work.

It is tested for infections, separated into components, and stored, red cells chilled, platelets at room temperature, plasma frozen. Platelet donation in Assam is critical here: BBCI goes through platelets faster than almost any other hospital in the state. Whole blood vs platelets, explained →

Men can donate every 3 months, women every 4. Voluntary donors are the entire supply, why hospitals ask families for "replacement" is simply that there aren't enough of you yet.

Bring the requisition slip, the doctor's paper that states the blood group and component needed (the slip, explained). The bank crossmatches donor blood against the patient's sample before issuing; that final check is what makes transfusion safe, and it takes a little time.

Stock changes hour to hour. Check e-RaktKosh for reported availability, then call the hospital before travelling far, and if a group is short, a matching voluntary donor can be alerted in seconds through a free blood request.