Blood truck travels 600km to save 81-year-old woman

(Baonghean.vn)- Receiving a patient with a serious illness and an extremely rare blood type (Rh-B), doctors had to mobilize a car from Nghe An to Hanoi to urgently receive blood to save the patient.

Nghe An General Friendship Hospital has just mobilized all its forces to save the life of patient Duong Thi Hung (81 years old, Hung Thong, Hung Nguyen) who was hospitalized in a state of bleeding through her vagina for the past month.

On January 15, patient Hung was admitted to the hospital with severe blood loss and cervical damage in an elderly and frail condition. The patient had Rh-B blood, an extremely rare type.

Patient Duong Thi Hung is receiving active post-operative treatment.

Assessing the critical situation, on January 16, the Obstetrics Surgery Team decided to perform emergency surgery on the patient. However, a major problem arose: the patient had a rare blood type, while the reserve blood type at the Provincial Hematology and Blood Transfusion Center was no longer available. The plan to mobilize live blood banks was implemented but only 2 units of blood were mobilized from Ms. Nguyen Thi Hanh and Phan Thi Thuy (Vinh City).

To ensure sufficient blood, Nghe An General Hospital contacted the Central Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion to order blood. However, due to the extremely rare blood type, the Institute only had 1 unit of blood (250 ml) of Rh-B blood type left. Recognizing that this was a “golden drop of blood”, an ambulance was immediately sent to Hanoi to transport blood for emergency transfusion to the patient.

Traveling 600km round trip from Nghe An to Hanoi, the car brought 1 unit of blood back in time for surgery for the patient.

At this time, doctors and nurses from Nghe An General Hospital also joined in, testing blood to be ready to save the patient. The blood test results showed that nurse Nguyen Thi Hanh (Department of Neurology, Nghe An General Hospital) met the requirements and quickly donated blood to save the patient.

Nurse Nguyen Thi Hanh donated blood to save a patient's life.

With blood transfusions from Hanoi and Vinh, the surgery was successful and the patient gradually overcame the critical stage. Currently, the patient is being actively monitored post-operatively at the Department of Surgical Resuscitation. "We are trying to control the patient's hemodynamics and pulse. Hopefully, once the patient gets through the critical stage, the body will self-regulate and produce more red blood cells to compensate for the amount of blood lost," said Dr. Thai Binh Duong, Department of Surgical Resuscitation.

Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy, the patient's daughter, confided that her mother was old and afraid of going to the hospital, so even though she had been bleeding from her vagina for a month, she refused to go to the doctor. Furthermore, her mother had never had a blood test in her life, so the family did not know that she had such a rare blood type.

When the doctor announced that they needed someone with the same extremely rare blood type, all 7 children were extremely confused because none of them had the same blood type as their mother.

Hoang Yen